Keberadaan kesenian tradisional Sumatera Selatan cenderung memprihatinkan, komunitasnya menunjukkan gejala ketidakberdayaan. Keadaan ini melemahkan fungsi sosial kesenian tradisional sehingga mengurangi perannya di dalam pembangunan daerah. Penelitian dengan metode kualitatif ini merupakan studi kasus terhadap komunitas Dulmuluk, seni teater tradisional di Sumatera Selatan. Kerangka konseptual yang dipergunakan adalah konsep dan teori-teori fungsi sosial kesenian, identitas, dan pemberdayaan. Pemberdayaan terhadap komunitas Dulmuluk perlu dilakukan agar fungsi sosialnya dapat berkontribusi terhadap identitas daerah. Hasil studi menunjukkan bahwa untuk melakukan upaya pemberdayaan maka kedua aktor pembangunan kesenian, yakni pemerintah dan komunitas seniman tradisional, harus bertindak bersama-sama dalam koridor konsep pemberdayaan dengan dasar prinsip- prinsip keadilan, kemandirian dan partisipasi komunitas, untuk membangunan martabat dan rasa percaya diri komunitas dalam menjaga kelangsungan tatanan budaya. Strategi yang diperlukan adalah pemberdayaan komunitas yang berbasis pada identitas fungsi sosial kesenian tradisional, sehingga membangun komunitasnya berarti membangun kesenian itu sendiri.

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The existence of South Sumatra’s traditional arts community tends to be gradually apprehensive. The community is powerless due to the lack of economic support. This conditlon afiects its social functions in contributing to the sustainability of locai traditional arts. This study applies a qualitative research approach and uses a case study of Dulmuluk community—a community of traditional art performance in South Sumatra. The framework of this study is rooted on theories of arts social function, identity, and community empowerment. Dulmuluk community needs to be empowered immediately in order able to reform its social functions that plays essential role in forming the identity of region. The resuit of this study indicates that two actors of the sustainability of traditional arts—the govemment and the art community should be actively involved in the empowerment process. They have to work in collaboration using the empowerment consept based on the principles of justice, community utonomy and participation in building the community’s prestige and self-confidence which are usefull for maintaining the continuity of the cultural order. The strategy required to do so is the community empowerment based on the identity of social functions of the traditional art. Thus, the building of the art community means the building of the art itself.