ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia 10 – 13 June 2010 Republic Polytechnic Singapore Abstracts (Photo courtesy o f Bussakorn Binson) 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia 1 ｜ Theme: HYBRIDITY Susan ANG Ngar Jiu, From "all the same" t o "the same" -­‐ about a lullaby of the Dusun Labuk. Mongindong is a lullaby of the Dusun Labuk in Eastern Sabah, Malaysia of Northern Borneo. Besides serving the function of cradling a child, it represents important characteristics of Dusun Labuk musical identity. One of the characteristics is the culturally open exchange among people living in the surrounding areas as well as musical expressions transmitted through these contacts. Thus, the mongindong is not immune from various "Non-­‐Dusun" inspirations. In the last decades, modern media has taken over an important part of cultural input into music practice of the Dusun Labuk. This paper will describe the mongindong in its individual shape as interpreted by the bearer in the last few decades. These different interpretations will then be compared with a kind of abstract modern mongindong, which is possibly well accepted among younger Dusun Labuk and which becomes the only version known. This presentation is based on extensive field research in Eastern Sabah, and a detailed analysis of melodic and text patterns used in mongindong. The case of replacing individual versions of certain music practices, through an abstract or rather summarising version that is transmitted through modern media, will be discussed from various perspectives. Biographical note Susan Ang Ngar Jiu is a student m ember of ICTM and a grad student at Universiti Putra Malaysia. She studies the oral traditions (currently focusing on lullabies and folk tales) of the Dusun Labuk in eastern Sabah, Malaysia since 2008. Fredeliza CAMPOS, The Changing Musical Tradition of the Ifugaos in Northerm Philippines: An Ethno-­‐archaeomusicological Exploration. The cultural manufacture of sound is a provocative yet underrepresented area in the study of Philippine music and h istory. This research focuses on the analysis of the musical instruments of the Ifugaos, a prominent group of mountain-­‐dwelling people from the Cordillera region in northern Philippines to d emonstrate the d egrees of change and probably disappearance of particular aspects of the group’s ritualistic and musical tradition. A two-­‐pronged framework, that is, both ethnoarchaeological and musicological will b e used in the analysis of the Ifugao musical instruments which were collected by anthropologists between the early 20th century to the present. The collections are currently housed in three different institutions, namely, the U.P. Center for Ethnomusicology, the National Museum of the Philippines, both of which have materials dating from the 1950s and the Field Museum in Chicago, which contain instruments collected from the early 1900s. Ethnoarchaeology is a subfield in archaeology that utilizes anthropological data of modern-­‐day communities to understand past cultures and as such will be directly applied to examine the enduring community of the Ifugaos, which asserts a pre-­‐colonial culture like of the many ethno-­‐
linguistic groups in the country. This study thus hopes to augment a greater understanding of musical cultures that have not received if not minimal influence from the Spanish colonizers more than 500 years ago. Biographical note Fredeliza Campos is currently a postgraduate student at the University of Hong Kong and her presentation is part of ongoing dissertation work for the degree Master of Philosophy in Music. Earlier, she completed a Masters d egree in Archaeology at the University of the Philippines (U.P.) and remains active in that field. She was also a musical instruments archivist at the U.P. Center for Ethnomusicology, handling the collections of ethnomusicologist Jose Maceda. She has conducted research on past lifeways and pre-­‐colonial traditions 2 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
through archaeology and aims to apply this in ethnomusicology, particularly the intricacies of musical instruments that characterize various indigenous communities in the Philippines. James CHOPYAK, Gus Steyn: Malaysian or World Musician? Gus S teyn was born in Holland in 1927, and he received h is formal music education there. He lived in Indonesia in the late 1940s, Australia and Singapore in the 1950s and early 1960s. Although he was a citizen of Singapore, he was regarded as one of Malaysia’s best composers and arrangers for nearly 30 years. He was also an orchestra conductor and pianist and was a true World Musician. This paper explores the early days of music a t Radio Television Malaysia and the role of Gus Steyn in that era as well as Gus Steyn h imself. The paper explores what this tells us about Malaysian music in the early years of the country. It a lso reviews the life and music of Gus S teyn. Biographical note Jim Chopyak is an ethnomusicologist and Professor of Music at the California State University, Sacramento, where h e has taught since 1987. In addition to his t eaching he has served on numerous University committees and has been the President of the CSU Sacramento Chapter of the California Faculty Association. He also is actively involved in organizing and promoting world music events at CSUS. In total he has spent n early 9 years living in Malaysia and in Singapore while working as a music educator. While in Malaysia Jim performed as a French Horn player with the RTM Orchestra, and in Singapore he played French Horn with the Singapore Symphony. Bernard ELLORIN, From the Kulintangan to the Synthesizer: Sama Traditional and Contemporary Music in the Southern Philippines and Malaysia Timor. Divided by two insular Southeast Asian countries, the Sama people are a minority ethnic group living amongst a Christian Filipino and Islamic Malaysian majority. Within these communities, the Sama conserve traditional and contemporary musical styles that reflect their economic status in both countries. Because of their second-­‐class citizenship throughout the Philippines, Sama musicians use accessible musical instruments and recyclable materials in order to continue their musical traditions of kulintangan gong-­‐chime and gabbang bamboo xylophone music. As a commodity for the Malaysian Department of Tourism, the Sama in Semporna, Sabah are funded to continue their gong making traditions while creating fusions with contemporary western musical instruments to entertain domestic and foreign tourists. Therefore, traditional Sama musical references are found within the process of creating music that is trans-­‐national. This paper will discuss the evolution of Sama music in both the southern Philippines and East Malaysia. Using the synthesizing of Sama musical instruments and the popularization of the Pakiring music genre in both countries as examples, I will explore the differences between Sama musicians that create music with available resources to Sama that are externally funded to conserve their traditional and contemporary musics. Problematizing this dichotomy will reflect how a minority group evolves within two different countries under different economic circumstances while maintaining its ethno-­‐linguistic identity. Biographical note Bernard Ellorin is a Ph.D. ethnomusicology student at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa specializing in southern Philippine gong-­‐chime music. With a Bachelors from UCLA and a Masters from UH Manoa, Ellorin researches and performs Philippine music and dance with the Samahan Philippine Dance Company in San Diego, California. Ellorin has conducted fieldwork research on kulintang music in Mindanao, Philippines in 2003 and 2004. He has also enrolled in extended Philippine music courses at the University of the Philippines, 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 3 Diliman. Ellorin’s future goals are to obtain a doctorate in ethnomusicology in order to become an educator on Philippine and World Music. Jennifer FRASER, Hybridity and Emergent Traditions: Gongs, Pop Songs, and the Story of Talempong Kreasi in West Sumatra Ensembles featuring sixty talempong (small kettle gongs), bamboo reed pipe, bass guitar, tambourine, and jembe play carefully orchestrated, harmonized arrangements of pop songs. Talempong kreasi baru (“new creation talempong”), a style that dates back to the late 1960s, has come to articulate Minangkabau “tradition” in contexts ranging from tourist performance to elite weddings. This paper analyzes how such a hybrid style has become central to the p erformance of Minangkabau ethnicity and asks just who legitimates this music’s “traditional” status. I draw on interviews with the inventor of orkes talempong (literally talempong orchestra, talempong kreasi’s prototype) and other early participants, along with current composers, performers, and critics to illustrate d ifferent investments in the style as an expression of Minangkabau identity. I argue that orkes talempong emerged in response to a failed regional rebellion against the centralized, Javanese-­‐dominated government; it reflected the need to recoup lost pride and visibility within the state. However, by fusing the local with the modern, orkes talempong offered a particularly cosmopolitan vision of what it meant to b e Minangkabau. Ultimately, the paper questions concepts of authenticity and hybridity by suggesting orkes talempong and its current continuation, talempong kreasi, are not just reflective of but actually constitutive of new cultural realities. Rather than viewing hybridity as an intentional pastiche of discrete elements ( i.e. Minangakabu plus modern), it is more productive to view orkes talempong as an organic synthesis of elements that actively contributed to the construction of an emergent Minangkabau identity. Biographical note Jennifer Fraser is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology at Oberlin College. Her research — funded in part by the Social Science Research Council — looks at the intersection of music, ethnicity, cultural politics of the state, weddings, and tourism in relation to the Minangkabau in West Sumatra and Jakarta. She is the recipient of an Oberlin College competitive research grant and will spend her 2010-­‐2011 sabbatical year at work on her monograph, Packaging Ethnicity: Gongs, Pop Songs, and Competing Authenticities in West Sumatra. Jennifer also directs the Indonesian gong ensembles at Oberlin, including a central Javanese gamelan and West Sumatran talempong. David HARNISH, Hybridity in Balinese Music: The Agency and Performance Style of Guitarist I Wayan Balawan Most studies on music hybridity address Western composers appropriating world music styles, corporations developing a category of hybridity to further music sales, or are postcolonial critiques on the impacts of globalization. This paper, on the other hand, is grounded in ethnography and meant to contribute to the literature of what has been called by Stock (2001) “ethnomusicology of the individual.” In the case of Indonesia, and perhaps Southeast Asia as a whole, musicians have particular histories of cultural arts heritage and often an agency in making their own decisions and crafting their music in accordance to their own s ense of aesthetics. In this paper, I explore the music, technique, and agency of Balinese jazz guitarist I Wayan Balawan. Balawan (b. 1973) is unique from many other popular music artists in Bali. Instead of an urban center, he was born and raised in an arts village, Batuan, and spent decades absorbing traditional 4 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
arts and playing gamelan before turning to global music and the guitar. Attracted to complex, fast music, he was naturally drawn to the speed metal style. His interest in music took him to the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney, where he encountered, fell in love with, and mastered jazz. Upon returning to Bali in 1997, he was inspired to combine gamelan, metal, and jazz together into an original hybrid. I will discuss his music, its style characteristics, his guitar technique and cultural background, and explore his Batuan Fusion Band and this ensemble’s development, composition and performance contexts. Biographical note David Harnish (Ph.D.-­‐UCLA, MA-­‐University of Hawai’i) is Professor of Ethnomusicology and co-­‐director of the Balinese gamelan in the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University. He is author of Bridges to the Ancestors: Music, Myth and Cultural Politics at an Indonesian Festival (University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), co-­‐author/editor of Divine Inspiration: Music and Islam in Indonesia (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), and has published thirty articles in journals, encyclopedias and books. A former consultant for the BBC, National Geographic, and the Smithsonian Institute, he has recorded and/or performed Indonesian, jazz, Indian and Tejano musics with f ive different labels. Ako MASHINO, Rodat and rebana as symbols of Muslim Balinese cultural identity This paper discusses rodat, a traditional Balinese performing art, and its representation of the cultural, ethnic, and religious identity of the Muslim Balinese. Rodat is a dance performed by a group of men, accompanied by rebana (hand drum). The dancers portray brave soldiers, using body movements similar to those of silat, a traditional Indonesian martial art and wearing warrior costumes. The dance is also thought to reflect the historical fact that the men’s ancestors were warriors protecting local rulers. Muslim Balinese, the d escendants of Muslim immigrants from other islands including Sulawesi, Java, and Lombok, are a religious/ethnic minority in Bali, where the sweeping majority of the population is Hindu, and yet they still maintain the unique customs originally brought from their homelands. Rodat/rebana, though, is only seen in long-­‐established Muslim communities, settled in Bali for hundreds of years. Members of these communities have a strong sense of “Balinese” identity, and distinguish themselves from recent Muslim arrivals who came mainly as economic migrants. These communities present an interesting synthesis of various factors rooted in different cultures. The rodat/rebana, performed both inside and outside the community, is one of the most expressive representations of the group’s cultural identity. Here, I will examine how rodat performances have been interpreted by both Muslim and Hindu Balinese, and how Muslims have negotiated with Hindu Balinese to adjust their social position in Balinese society through these p erformances. Biographical note MASHINO Ako received her Ph.D. in 2002 from OCHANOMIZU University, Japan. She has conducted field research for many years in Bali, Indonesia, and has especially studied gender wayang and arja. Recently she started her new research project on the performing arts of Balinese Muslim communities. She currently lectures in ethnomusicology at several universities in Tokyo, including Tokyo University of the Arts and Kunitachi College of Music. She a lso performs and t eaches Balinese gamelan in Japan. Patricia MATUSKY, Wayang Jawa (Wayang Melayu) Ancient Malaysian Shadow Play (wayang kulit): Aristocratic Hegemony in a Hybridized F orm 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 5 While at least three different types of Malay shadow puppet theater (wayang kulit) existed in Peninsular Malaysia until the late 20th century, today only two types survive. These are the wayang kulit Kelantan, a popular folk style that developed in the northeast (Kelantan) and was widely performed from the eastern coastal state of Pahang northward across the border to the southern Thai states; and secondly the wayang kulit gedek, another folk style found primarily in the northwest states ( Kedah and Perlis). The third type of Malay shadow puppet theater, called wayang Jawa (or wayang Melayu), was strongly influenced by Javanese shadow play (wayang kulit purwa), and was performed for aristocrats mainly in the northern states of Kedah and Kelantan and in the ancient Malay Sultanate of Pattani in southern Thailand. This form is extinct today, but contributes to the historical background and tradition of shadow puppet theater found in Peninsular Malaysia from at least the late 18th century and most likely earlier. Its importance, historically, stems from its development, nurturing and performance under the patronage of Malay royalty in the northern Malaysian states (Kelantan and Kedah) from about the late 18th century up to the years of World War II. This paper intends to discuss the strong hybrid character of the wayang Jawa, and its development under royal patronage, in both its theatrical and musical aspects. The wayang Jawa was p erformed only in a palace context and, while maintaining some features of the popular folk style, it featured a changed dramatic and musical repertory, and a modified gamelan. This paper will also attempt to look at some of the reasons for its development, as well as its d emise b y the late 20th century.
Biographical note Patricia Matusky is Adjunct professor at Grand Valley State University (Michigan, USA). She has taught, over the years, at University of Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia and was Head of Music (1990-­‐93) at LaSalle-­‐SIA College of the Arts, Singapore. Her research encompasses music of the Malay shadow theater and other traditional Malay genres, and the music of indigenous groups in Sarawak. H er major publications include The Malaysian Shadow Puppet Theater (OUP, 1993 & 1997), Music of Malaysia (co-­‐author with Tan Sooi Beng) (Ashgate, 2004), and many articles on traditional music of Malaysia in international journals and encyclopedias, including New Grove’s Dictionary, Garland Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia of Malaysia. She currently serves as the Chair of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia. MOHD ANIS Md. Nor, From Matrilineality t o Post-­‐Colonial Gazes: Hybridity in Minangkabau Art Dance and Music. From the archaic Silat Sado (silat dance) of Pariaman-­‐Padangpanjang, Kabupaten Tanah Datar, to the dance of Barabah choreographed by Huriah Adam (1936-­‐1971), Syofyani Yusaf’s neo-­‐Minang-­‐
Malayic movement nuances and the genderless Minangkabau art dance of Gusmiati Suid (1942-­‐
2001), Minangkabau art music and dance was transformed from being local and regional to the national and international performance spaces. Moved by internal forces of artistic changes, movements and gestures from the games of martial d isplay b y male Minangkabau youth ( pamenan urang mudo) were re-­‐transformed into n ew choreograhies b y female choreographers (Huriah Adam, Syofyani Yusaf and Gusmiati Suid) to the accompaniment of new music arrangements and compositions on the indigenous Talempong kettle gong ensemble tuned to western scales, hybridizing old and new Minangkabau performing arts into post-­‐colonial art dance and music. This paper will discuss the transformative processes in Minangkabau art dance and music from the 1960s to the 21st Century into post-­‐colonial d isplay of modernity and change from the conservative gazes of matrilineality. Biographical note 6 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
Mohd. Anis Md. Nor is Professor of Ethnochoreology and Ethnomusicology at the Cultural Centre (School of Performing Arts), University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.. Although his foremost research area deals with Malay dance and music in Southeast Asia, he has pioneered the study of Zapin dance and music in Southeast Asia and has published widely on the said topic. He is the 2007 William Allan Neilson Distinguish Professor of Music, Dance and Theatre at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Joe PETERS, Plotting "Onloading" and "Inloading" Trajectories in an Attempt to Understand Hybridity in Musical Evolution. The process of musical hybridization in Southeast Asia has mainly been a quest to be a part of the music business and industry. As such, it has received some attention (but not enough) from the deep processes of ethnomusicological study. With globalization proceeding even more rapidly this century, there is urgent need to study hybridity as a process. This paper will present a laboratory pedagogy that seeks to detect patterns of elemental behavior in trajectories that musics in Singapore took -­‐ and are continuing to take. At the h eart of the pedagogy is the Sonic Orders Music Listening Index (SOLMI), a prototype listening analysis software that includes a method to deconstruct musical trajectories. The software is customized for Singapore. The laboratory based music deconstruction technique (Study Tracks Method) is based on timeline annotation (text and audio) of elemental data, which students and researchers can use to collect data systematically with-­‐in a multi-­‐tracked layered system. Understanding and p erceiving the musical trajectories is an individualized a ctivity, but learning could be group based, dispersed and cumulative. SOLMI has identified two trajectories that music take in evolution: On-­‐loading (where elements of one musical genre ride on the propelling power of another musical genre) and In-­‐loading (where elements of one or more genres have equal interactions to form a new and distinctive genre). SOLMI was conceived and created in Singapore over the last twenty years within various music listening courses. It is being presented for the first time in Singapore, and will include some of the defining work by students. The paper will discuss the musical trajectory in Singapore. Biographical note Dr. Joe Peters is the Chief Consultant of Sonic A sia Music Consultants. H e has had a dual career -­‐ as a musician trained in the Philippines and Australia, and a s an A V-­‐IT professional at a local university. H e has been a ctively involved in the music of Southeast Asia, and serves in various capacities in local, regional and international bodies. Currently, he is completing a book on the sonic environment and the sustainability of traditional and indigenous musics in a globalized world. Felicidad A. PRUDENTE, Asserting Cordillera Identity Among t he Indigenous Peoples of t he Northern Philippines. Salidummay is a popular song form that has become a part of festive social gatherings such as weddings and peace-­‐pacts among the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) in northern Philippines. The song, referred to as dangdang-­‐ay, dongdong-­‐ay, dewas, and other regional terminologies, appears to have its beginnings in the first half of the 1900s. Various styles are performed today in new contexts such as Christian worship, political rallies, and tourism events. In this paper, I discuss the transformation of salidummay into a contemporary sound rendered a powerful assertion of Cordillera identity a mong CAR’s indigenous p eoples living in the City of Baguio. The City of Baguio is considered a melting pot in northern Philippines where CAR’s indigenous peoples like the Bontok, Ibaloy, Ifugao, Kalinga, Kankana-­‐ey and Tingguian converge and interact 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 7 with the neighboring Ilocano, Tagalog and other lowland groups as well as foreign residents and visitors. In salidummay, both traditional and new ideas are combined in innovative ways to chronicle CAR’s indigenous p eoples s truggles, h istory and culture. Biographical note Felicidad A. Prudente, Ph.D. is a Filipino ethnomusicologist who has undertaken a broad range of field music research on various aspects of Philippine musics. She holds regular workshops on Philippine musics and musical instruments such as Cordillera bamboo ensembles and Mindanao gongs including the kulintang. She was a Hughes awardee at the Center of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan in 2004. Currently, she teaches at the University of the Philippines and is a consultant at the Philippine Women’s University School of Music. Lawrence ROSS, The Hybrid Melodic and Textual Repertoires of Southwest Thailand’s Rong Ngeng Tanyong. In southwest Thailand, a social dance called rong ngeng arose from an idiomatic, northwest Malayan version of ronggeng first introduced to the region in the 1930s by a small group of performers from Malaya who taught members of a community on Lanta Island in Krabi province. As the performers and their local students spread rong ngeng throughout the Malay and Thai-­‐
speaking communities in the lower Andaman Sea coast, they transformed its texts into the local phak tai d ialect, sang using an indigenous poetic form, and expanded the melodic repertoire—
originally a mixture of northwest Malayan folk tunes and popular pan-­‐Malayan bangsawan theater songs—to encompass new tunes adapted from local lullabies, courtship songs, and folk theater. This new style, known as rong ngeng tanyong, in time b ecame a prominent medium for expressing local identity. Rong ngeng tanyong spread and reached a peak of popularity following the Second World War: a period of major social and economic changes in the region when Malayan and southern Thai cultural spheres became increasingly separated, Thai became the primary medium of communication, rubber agriculture expanded widely, and once-­‐migratory populations became settled. While the songs of this era were not explicit commentaries on these changes, the genre as a whole reflected those transformations. This paper focuses on hybridity in rong ngeng tanyong melodies, texts, performance styles, and the social and creative processes that produced these changes. Biographical Note Lawrence Ross is a Ph.D. candidate in Ethnomusicology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He received a 2006-­‐07 Fulbright Scholarship for study of folk performance in southwest Thailand and a 2009 ENITS Scholarship from the Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University. He is writing his dissertation on rong ngeng social dance music in southwest Thailand and has a forthcoming article entitled “Hikayat Abu Qasim: The Legacy of a Twentieth-­‐Century Rong Ngeng Pioneer in Thailand’s Andaman Coast Region,” Rian Thai. Margaret SARKISSIAN, Strike up the Band: Straits Chinese Musical Eclecticism at the Close of the Colonial Era. Prior to Malaysian Independence (1957), social life for colonial elites in Malaysia revolved around private sports and social clubs that organized galas, variety shows, and balls. In Melaka, wealthy Straits Chinese sponsored amateur musical and theatrical groups, which often performed to raise money for charitable causes. Today’s older generation nostalgically remember dondang sayang parties held in wealthy Baba homes to celebrate weddings, birthdays, and other festivities. Many also reminisce about the music lessons they had in their younger days (in typical British fashion, 8 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
piano lessons for young ladies, violin and other instruments for young men). In addition, there were public theaters, cabarets, and amusement parks that entertained the general populace. The musical life of Melaka’s Peranakan community at this time was highly eclectic in nature, mixing elements drawn from British colonial culture and their Malay n eighbors in particular. Equally eclectic were the Peranakan bands themselves, in which Goans and Filipinos as well as local Malay, Eurasian, and Chinese musicians rubbed shoulders. Using a combination of visual evidence in the form of old photographs, newspaper accounts, and interview material I will illustrate this eclecticism and trace some of the socio-­‐political subtexts that permeate the fascinating and complex world of Melaka’s Peranakan community at the tail end of the colonial era. Biographical note Margaret Sarkissian received her Ph.D. in music (ethnomusicology) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-­‐
Champaign, USA, in 1993, and is currently Professor of Music at Smith College, Massachusetts. She is author of D’Albuquerque’s Children: Performing Tradition in Malaysia’s Portuguese Settlement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000) and Kantiga di Padri sใ Chang, compact disc and 141-­‐page booklet, volume 5 in the series a viagem dos sons / the journey of sounds (Lisbon: Tradisom and EXPO ’98). She has done extensive research with Portuguese-­‐Eurasian, Straits Chinese, and Malay communities in Malacca since 1990. Kendra STEPPUTAT, Kecak Ramayana – Tourists in Search for “the real“ Thing. In the course of almost eighty years, the kecak ramayana as it is p erformed today on Bali, has b een developed and d esigned with the s ole purpose to attract a foreign audience. It has become a major representative for Balinese performing arts, marketed for cultural tourists visiting the island. Of course, if the kecak is promoted and used for travel advertisements inside and outside of Bali, it is not presented as a tourist genre. In fact, most tourists believe that what they see is a “traditional”, “authentic” genre that is usually p erformed for a Balinese audience, and expect that its origins date back to a long bygone and unremembered past. However, the kecak's genesis and development, with exact dates, names and places, are well documented in film, photography and written sources. They constitute a substantial basis to analyze the „hybridity“ of this genre, where elements of sanghyang dedari and sanghyang jaran, kebyar, gambuh, wayang wong, sendratari and possibly more have been included and over the years been formed into the standard kecak ramayana p erformance. With this paper I want to show the discrepancy b etween kecak marketing, tourists' expectations and kecak “reality”, where questions of “realness” “tradition” and “authenticity” automatically arise. Biographical note Kendra Stepputat has a master in comparative musicology from Free University Berlin (2003). From 2003-­‐
2009 she worked as lecturer at the Martin-­‐Luther-­‐Universität Halle-­‐Wittenberg (Germany). Since 2009 she is lecturer at the Kunstuniversität Graz (Austria), where she currently finishes her dissertation entitled „The kecak – a Balinese Dance, its Genesis, History and Manifestation Today“ (defense in April 2010). First books and articles have been published. In 2000/01 she studied Balinese dance at the ISI Denpasar with a grant from the Indonesian government (Darmasiswa). Kendra Stepputat has done several fieldwork trips to Bali (last 2006), partly financed by the DAAD. She t eaches gamelan beleganjur. TAN Sooi Beng, The Thai Menora in Penang: Recreating Local Identities Through Hybridity. The Thai community comprises less than one percent of Penang’s multiethnic population. In the late nineteenth century, the Thais came to Penang from Kedah and Perlis, which used to be tributary 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 9 states of Siam. Thai temples, culinary traditions, performing arts, and street names are evidence of the community’s influence in Penang. Today, this community continues to maintain family and cultural ties in Thailand through travel and the mass media. Nevertheless, as Malaysian citizens, the community has adapted to socio-­‐cultural changes locally and to the narratives of the state. Through the study of the h istory, functions, theatrical, dance, and musical elements of the Menora folk dance theatre in Penang, this paper illustrates that the performing arts provide spaces where the Thai community can articulate and rework its identities. Nevertheless, the articulation of Thai-­‐ness is not fixed and is constantly b eing reconstructed. This s ense of Thai-­‐ness is localized but a lso responds to the flows of culture from Thailand. Through hybridity, the Menora speaks for the continuity as well as transformation of a tradition, which emblemizes the shifting identities of the Thais in d iaspora. Biographical note Tan Sooi Beng is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the School of Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia. She is the author of Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera (Oxford University Press, 1993) and co-­‐author of Music of Malaysia: Classical, Folk and Syncretic Traditions (Ashgate Press, 2004). She has published numerous articles on the performing arts including popular music, Chinese puppet theatre and opera. Tan is a ctive in the d evelopment of the music curriculum for secondary schools and is a keen exponent of multiarts community theatre for young people in Malaysia. Shzr Ee TAN, Inscribing China into Singaporean musical traditions: a short history of accordions and harmonicas. Accordions and harmonicas enjoyed a brief but significant surge in Singapore’s music scene during the 1950s to 1980s. Valued for their portability and – in the case of the accordion – its self-­‐
contained attribute of a “loud, one-­‐man-­‐band”, these instruments became musical functionaries of many student gatherings, even as they played largely re-­‐arrangements of known tunes. The accordion was introduced to Singapore through (among other channels) amateur ensembles and choirs from the newly formed People’s Republic of China. Frequently used to accompany revolutionary songs, the instrument – and to a certain extent the solo harmonica – acquired associations with leftist student movements. Serving the interests of young and idealistic Chinese-­‐
educated populations, the accordion, and later the harmonica, enjoyed its heyday during the 1960s as a symbol of early activism. Interweaving oral history interviews with new recordings of old musical repertoire, this paper explores ‘red’ links to the accordion and harmonica in Singapore, and the role of music in the construction and inscription of Chinese politics into an imagined Singaporean “traditional” culture up till and beyond political changes in the 1960s which eventually swept through the island to contain further communist ‘insurgencies’. In addition, this paper also examines the continued but ‘rehabilitated’ practice of new harmonica music in Singapore (in the guise of rearranged Western classics’) following the official containment of communist interests. Reflecting across a wider historical arc, I also examine retrospective conceptual reconstructions of the accordion today as ‘a broken shell of an instrument, representing old, youthful ideals’ among former d isillusioned leftists. Biographical note Shzr Ee Tan is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Royal Holloway, currently researching musical activities on new m edia p latforms in the Chinese diaspora, with research ranging from viral videos to politico-­‐
musical activism on the internet. She completed her Ph.D. at the School of Oriental and African Studies, studying Amis aboriginal folksong of Taiwan in interacting contexts of the village, the cultural troupe, the popular music industry and Christian missionisation. Additional interests include musics of Singapore, music and gender, music and politics, urban ethnomusicology and connections between music and food cultures. Her published work has appeared in academic journals including Ethnomusicology Forum, Chime and the Journal of American Folklore. Shzr Ee teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in World Music and Performance at Royal Holloway. 10 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
Theme: Silat PANEL TITLE: A Performance Art Grown from the Southeast Asian Village into an Asset in the Global Movement Arts Market: Some views on t he Pencak Silat. Organizer: Uwe Paetzold "Pencak Silat", as it is nowadays labeled, is a movement art basically grown under many regional and interregional names from varying indigenous ethnic cultures of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam and the Southern Philippines. Further adjacent (Thailand), remote (India, Vietnam, China), migrant ( Netherlands and Central Europe, USA), national ( especially Indonesia and Malaysia since the early 1980ies) and transnational (Internet, video media) cultures and topologies did and do contribute to its development. This has resulted in a wide-­‐ranging blend of different styles and schools. Local styles furthermore have inspired a range of derived or related local music, dance and theatre forms, while contemporary artists h ave sought for inspiration in this martial art. Traditionally Pencak Silat combines a ll of these aspects: the movements are s een as the outer form of inner life. Most practitioners therefore conceive of Pencak Silat as a way of living. Its complex and interwoven appearances find indigenous expressions in the Malay speaking world in terms like "kebudayaan Pencak Silat" ("Pencak Silat Culture") and "dunia Silat" ( "World of Silat"). However, since about the 1980s, considerable changes in the local cultures in Southeast Asia have led to corresponding changes in the roles, functions, and appearance forms of what traditionally was conceived as penca(k) or silat. Therefore, one major aspect for scientific considerations will be to discern b etween actual and h istorical conditions of that art complex. This panel of speakers intends to sketch focused insights into the "World of Silat" and related martial arts of Southeast Asia, and to inspire further s tudies in this field of research. Margaret K ARTOMI, The Nature, History and Distribution of the Art of Self Defence in Indonesia: Martial Performance Displays (Pencak) and Duels (Silat). ( Panel presentation) Pencak silat (“the art of self defence”) is a contemporary umbrella term used in Indonesia and Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia to designate the hundreds of traditional and modern martial art genres that are performed either solo or as a duel, and with or without musical accompaniment. The two components of the term designate the two parts of the one pencak silat genre: pencak, a performance art, and silat, a fighting and self defence art, with the latter sometimes involving the use of weapons such as a s word or dagger. The forms are associated with a range of local legends, philosophies, religions, and systems of customary law (adat), and are components of traditional education. This paper explores the d iversity of pencak silat’s lesser known forms in s elect areas of Sumatra ( especially Riau, North Sumatra, South Sumatra and Bangka), West Kalimantan and West F lores, and compares them briefly with some previously well-­‐studied forms in Bali, Central and East Java, West Java, and West Sumatra. It contrasts them with group dances that have an overt martial character and use pencak silat derived movements in areas such as Aceh and Ternate (North Maluku), and aims to construct a preliminary ethnomusicological theory of the nature and h istory of pencak silat in Indonesia. Biographical note Margaret Kartomi, AM FAHA Dr. Phil., is Professor of Music at Monash University. She is the author of several books including On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments (University of Chicago Press, 1990) and The Gamelan Digul and the Prison Camp Musician who Built it (University of Rochester Press, 2002). H er next book, Musical Journeys in S umatra, is forthcoming with the University of Illinois Press. 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 11 Bussakorn BINSON, Sila: A Traditional Martial Art in Southern Thailand (Panel presentation) The process of this qualitative research was comprised of d irect observation, in-­‐depth interviews of well-­‐known artists, a survey of their musical instruments and related performances. Additionally, the associated ritual materials, offerings and documents were examined in context. The research discovered that the culturally significant music and performances in this region could be d ivided into two social-­‐religious groups, as delineated b y the Buddhist and Muslim faiths. Pencek Silat or what is more commonly known as Sila, is one of the most famous traditional martial arts in southern Thailand. Furthermore, the interviewees conveyed that the few remaining Sila masters will likely not be replaced due to the lack of interest from the younger generations. As a result, the complex knowledge and skill of the Sila art form is threatened with extinction with the current generation. This article focuses on the Sila's key elements and characteristics along with the succession of musical knowledge including its rituals and beliefs that comprises the Sila p erformance environment in Southern Thailand. Biographical note Dr. Bussakorn Sumrongthong Binson is an Associate Professor in Music at the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University. She received her PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of York, UK. The focus of her field research encompasses all the regions of Thailand. She is also the director of the Thai Music and Culture Research Division at Chulalongkorn University. Additionally, she is the Thailand representative to the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) since 1999. EDY UTAMA, Silat Minangkabau versus t he Hegemony of t he State. (Panel presentation) Silat in Minangkabau culture has certain meanings, functions and philosophies directed towards values of "Minangkabau-­‐ness". These values form a kind of social contract, which is expected to embody living values within individual's lives. In traditional perspective, each (male) child is expected to become responsible for its culture, i.e. by learning bersilat. Moreover, each settlement of the Minangkabau has its surau, an institution where the youth are provided with education in life skills, religious knowledge, and knowledge of local customs (adat), especially as related to silat culture and lore. We can speak, at least, of two different kinds of silat in which a Minangkabau youth must become proficient. The first is the knowledge on self defence, and arts related to silat. The second, the so-­‐called "silat of the tongue" (silat lidah), relates to achievements of quick-­‐
wittedness, and intellectual abilities. The traditions and cultures of silat form a medium for the exchange of comradeship (silaturrahmi) between communities, and individuals. Unique traditions like the alek nagari become a p lace where these social relationships are exchanged. Traditions and cultures of silat are undergoing s evere changes nowadays. One tendency that can b e observed since the beginning of the era of local autonomy (otonomi daerah) is, though each region is trying to support its own local cultures, the hegemony of the state in the life of silat cultures remains dominant. To learn silat today, many of the Minangkabau youth are no longer directed to local cultural targets, but rather they are encouraged to develop themselves in accordance with rules based in the national s ystem, hence the local talent in traditional silat is increasingly n eglected. Biographical note Edy Utama is a culture organisator, journalist, photographer, and promoter of the arts in Minangkabau cultures (i.e., h ead of the Arts Council of West Sumatra 2000-­‐2003). H e is the h ead of the special council of the 12 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
Indonesian Pencak Silat Bond of West Sumatra for the realisation of the "Changing Arena" (Gelanggang Silih Berganti). Founded in the 1980s, this institution is dedicated to the development and support of traditional silat in Minangkabau. He wrote a book entitled West Sumatra on the Stage of History: 1945 – 1995 (Sumatera Barat di Panggung Sejarah: 1945-­‐1995), and teaches at the Universitas Andalas in Padang. Gisa JAEHNICHEN, Observations from Stong (Kelantan) and from Kuala Penyu (Sabah). (Panel presentation) This presentation focuses on two rural examples of silat respectively s ilat music, which might allow a short glance on the great variety of that kind of performance among different communities in Malaysia. The observations took place in connection with selective field research between December 2007 and June 2008. Over a time span of three generations, timber production in Stong (Kelantan), a small settlement near the highest waterfalls of Southeast Asia, brought Malay workers and later on their families from various places together. Experiences from the east coast and from Pahang merged with local practice. One example is the performance of silat as wedding entertainment. Some details about musical s tructuring and ensemble coordination will b e analysed. In Kuala Penyu (Sabah), the Brunei minority performs silat with an ensemble of kulintangan, three large gongs and one drum. Their music practice as well as functional understanding is far different although the p erformance topic remains similar. Both examples and questions related to them can contribute to the discussion about philosophical background and actual cultural reality of pencak s ilat in the Malay Archipelago. Biographical note Gisa Jähnichen, born in Halle (Saale), Germany, studied musicology and regional studies on Southeast Asia at Charles University Prague, Czech Republic. She then worked as scientific assistant at Humboldt University Berlin, Germany, where she completed her PhD (1990) in m usicology and then lectured at various universities and was project leader of diverse international safeguarding projects. In 1997 h er lecturer thesis (habilitation) was completed at University Vienna. H er current research f ocuses on selected music p ractices in A sia and East Africa, gender studies, organology, audiovisual archiving and music related topics in media sciences. Since 1999 she is project advisor of the “Archives of Traditional Music in Laos” at the National Library in Vientiane. Furthermore, she has taught as professor in Detmold, Paderborn, Vienna, Vientiane, Ho Chi Minh City, Frankfurt a.M., Humboldt University Berlin and now at Universiti Putra Malaysia. Paul H. MASON, Modes of Transmission: Traditional West Sumatran and Contemporary West Javanese practices of Indigenous Martial Arts. (Panel presentation) A comparison of the instruction methods of Silek Minang in West Sumatra with those of Pencak Silat Seni in West Java, offers insight into two contrasting, but not entirely discrete, methods of cultural instruction. West Sumatran Silek Minang is practiced in small groups of practitioners who work closely with their teacher. Traditional teaching methods involve close guidance of the sensibilities, movement repertoire and intuitive capacities of the practitioners who generally train in pairs. The teaching demands are intense and time-­‐consuming. It is a training method that arguably draws heavily upon episodic memory in the transmission of cultural knowledge. As a cultural practice it is endangered by changing kinship patterns, which once p laced teaching responsibilities on maternal uncles. In West Java, schools of Sundanese Pencak Silat Seni often have numerous practitioners who repeat choreographed movements during scheduled training times. Practitioners can rehearse movements 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 13 by themselves, in pairs, or in groups. The teaching methods are characterised by the splicing of culturally organised material into digestible, perceptually salient units that are systematised and often labelled with mnemonic aids. Most schools have identifiable leaders, maintain a centralised organisation and a consciously preserved curriculum. It is a physical culture endorsed by various political and economic a gencies. It is hypothesised that systematised forms of Pencak Silat Seni place an emphasis on the role of semantic memory in the rapid acquisition of movement material, and that such methods of instruction capitalize on a different form of interaction between the declarative and procedural systems of the brain. Biographical note Paul Mason is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Macquaire University. He completed a Bachelor of Biomedical Science majoring in Neuroscience, Honours in Psychophysics and a Graduate Certificate in Arts (Anthropology) at the University of Melbourne. He has performed ethnographic fieldwork into practices of fight-­‐dancing in West Sumatra (2007-­‐2008), West Java (2008) and Brazil (2009). He recently co-­‐authored an online ethics training module for the social sciences. His core research interests are in neuroanthropology, choreomusicology and dance anthropology. Uwe U. PAETZOLD, Some Macro-­‐ and Micro-­‐Views on the Correlations between Pencak Silat, Music, and Dance in West Java, and t he Netherlands. (Panel presentation) This paper seeks to access musical and choreographical dimensions of the "world of Silat" (dunia Silat) from two different perspectives: S tarting with a 'macro-­‐view', some aspects of the "glocalized" (Robertson) developments of this art complex will be sketched, relating to two important regional points, and some of their cultural characteristics since the days of Indonesian independence in 1945. These focal points will b e West Java (Indonesia), and the Netherlands. The second, 'micro-­‐view' perspective, hence, will shed some light on some of the ways performances of Pencak Silat and related arts are involved into creating a vital feeling of "joyful liveliness" (keramaian), when providing a medium for secular or religious sociality, national and local pride, prowess, expressing and embodying a sense for beauty and ethics, presenting and transmitting life energy, and humor, in every day life of West Javanese societies. Within this caleidoscope of performance settings – sometimes prominent, sometimes less – music in many cases is an important feature. Biographical note Uwe U. Pätzold t eaches ethnomusicology at Robert Schumann University of Music, Duesseldorf, Germany. He further has taught ethnomusicology and new media related matters in ethno-­‐sciences at the Universities of Cologne and Bonn. He has done field research in West and Central Java, West Sumatra, Bali, and the Netherlands. Research interests include the culture and arts related to the movement and self defense art Pencak Silat, representations of ethnic music and movement arts within the new media, and borderline projects between contemporary and ethnic performing arts. For his publications, see BMS / German RILM Online catalogue at www.musikbibliographie.de, search words: uwe p*tzold. 14 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
Theme: ARCHIVING AND DOCUMENTATION PANEL TITLE: Issues in Archives and Archiving in Southeast Asia. The panel "Issues in Archives and Archiving" provokes and shows light on disconnections between the concept of copyright and it’s related concepts of performance rights and royalties especially in the cultural environments of SE Asia (and other parts of the world) where it is not clear who owns cultural material such as dance, music and theatre. All of the panel members are doing documentation and preservation on deeply focused work. The panel members are all long-­‐time collectors in Southeast Asia, and it would be important to hear the overlap and un-­‐overlap of problems as archivist/collectors whether institutional or personal. This panel is a springboard for other members of the study group to start to think about what to do about their own collections whether s mall or big. Panel Organiser: Alex Dea ALEX DEA, Who Paid King Tut? (Panel presentation) I propose a presentation on the problem of audio and video materials after acquisition but before publicly archived. The s ymposium theme of Archiving and Documentation clearly hints at the imperatives and threats. This is especially true where a number of individuals (including myself with more than 800 videos and larger amount of audio narrowly focused in Central Java, a place popularly studied but not as diligently documented) has worked separately. Even in the best conditions of modern institutions, collections suffer from lack of staff and space. Also if materials are safely stored in more modern countries, access to those who live locally may be a problem. I will provoke thoughts and issues about who will “save”, who cares, and who will d ig into or even recognize the value of the material. One approach is to get the material out to the public access quickly perhaps along the lines of the Free Software Foundation. I had previously suggested an internet network of individuals and institutions in Southeast Asia where there is chance of constantly renewal in new media. But public access whether for commercial or non-­‐profit, runs head-­‐on to complications of copyrights, rights, payments, and royalties. However, it is odd that if s omeone is dead long enough, that things tend to be free anyway! Who paid King Tut’s family for the right to show publicly Tut’s religious and sacred privacy? Did his descendants have royalties? Is it enough to say there is a limit of time for copyrights? Who d ecided that? Does it apply to cultures and countries which d o not have same such legalities? It is my goal to provoke the knotty problems of what to do with these gems, which may be threatened by disuse a nd finally loss before the collector does has a place to pass it on. Biographical note Alex Dea is a composer who was seduced into performance of world music because it was the best way to learn different systems of musical composition. Along the way, his forced responsibility to collect and to become a historical slave changed into a tender mission given by his masters and teachers. Having lived and studied in Central Java for the last 17 years, he has predominantly written about dance because it is easier than talking about music. Now he is writing at least one book about Pak Cokro Wasitodiningrat, the last master of the Javanese “Golden Age”. 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 15 Bussakorn BINSON, The Thai Music Archives at Chulalongkorn University ( Panel presentation) This paper explores the history of a 1994 project for archiving traditional Thai music by the great national artist Master Prasit Thavon. Master Thavon was an exceptionally talented student of Master musician Loung Pradit Pairow, who was more famously known as Sorn Silapabanleng. This archival project was sponsored by Chulalongkorn University's Cultural Center. Its aim was to preserve the recordings of all the ensembles that had leaders who studied with Master Sorn. This project resulted in a collection of over 1000 recordings that was later digitized for broader accessibility. Biographical note: See Bussakorn Binson under the Theme: Silat. Julia CHIENG, Singing sape: an audiovisual exploration. In an audiovisual document from Long Semiyang, Ulu Baram (Sarawak), a Kenyah Ngorek sape player sang a sape tune that he has played on his four-­‐string sape. Besides delivering the melodic rhythmic constituent of the tune, the sung sape tune also consists of several syllables, melodic articulation, and dynamics along with few significant gestures of facial expressions and body movements. As the instrument itself produces almost invariant timbre on the strings and only a slight dynamic fluctuation, the vocalized tune with differences in sound colour and sound volume, inflection, prominences and patterns resulted from collocation of few elements as well as the pantomimes are s eemingly p ortraying some musical characteristics that are not d istinctively s een or heard in the sape playing. By analogy, the content in the singing not only signifies the musical elements of ornamentation, articulation and musical expression in sape p laying, but a lso reflects the perceptions of musical preferences and culture behind the music making. Without audiovisual documentation of this non-­‐verbal “supplementary information” this phenomenon could not be explored. Thus, it proves the necessary inclusion of further differentiated audiovisual documentation of high quality. Biographical note After graduating from Universiti Putra Malaysia as Bachelor of Music (Performance) in y ear 2005, Julia Chieng worked as a music instructor and the Head of Performing Arts in Cempaka Performing Arts, Cheras Campus from 2005 to 2008. At present, she is doing her master study at Universiti Putra Malaysia on the present musical life of the Kenyah Lebu' Kulit in Belaga, Sarawak. Furthermore, she is active in organising scientific work, field work and is co-­‐editor of the UPM Book Series on Music Research. ENDO SUANDA, Audiovisual Archives of Indonesian Cultures; and Report on Methodology and Strategy. (Panel presentation) In the field of study of traditional cultures in Indonesia, and in Southeast Asia in general, the most rarely found a nd poorly managed resource is the audiovisual cultural archives. It is a regrettable and ironic aspect of these culturally rich countries. It is not because there are no d ocuments a vailable, in fact, an abundance of documented materials exist, and the number of documentation projects continue to grow, but there is almost no effort to build an archival s ystem. In this paper, I would present the locus of these documents, institutional and individual, provide an overview of the conditions at this time, and will try to explore the reason “why” audiovisual archives has never been considered as an important resource in the development of cultural 16 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
knowledge and science. Most of my presentation, however, will b e a report on my experience in the archival projects, stories of both disappointments and success. On the technical aspect, I will show our system on metadata platform, and I would propose that we should develop a metadata standard so then we can “harvest” it in the future. I will present more on the online access methodology: the interconnectivity of formats, and multicultural approaches. In my advocacy experience, this is rather effective to encourage social support for the need of the archives, so that people can s ee that there is so much to learn from it. Even those who initially were more concerned and worried that Indonesian cultural knowledge would be taken by foreigners, after looking at documents I presented from the Dutch archives, many said “We are lucky, that the Dutch keep our knowledge [in the forms of audiovisual archives].” As we know, to develop a good archive, besides taking a lot of energy and professional expertise in both IT (editing and online) and academic aspects, requires substantial and sustainable financial support. Therefore, I would be interested if we can form a working team, to develop a good “Southeast Asia Culture Resource Center.” This center will not be important for academic needs only, as resource for education, but it will also be important to develop social, political, and economic relations. If we are able to do so, I think we will gain greater acknowledgement and support, s ocially and politically. Biographical note A respected expert in gamelan music and topeng masked d ance of Indonesia, ethnomusicologist Endo Suanda has lectured, taught and performed around the world. His research interests encompass the performing arts as well as education in the humanities, culture and art. For many years, Endo Suanda has been working with art education at LPSN (Lembaga Pendidikan Seni Nusantara). He has been also working to develop a private archive, and in the past year or so he has been seriously working toward digital archives, in terms of archival (preservation) management and access. He is particularly interested in the development of archival techniques, metadata management, offline and online access to archival collections, and the organization of audio visual materials with a focus on multiculturalism. Gini GORLINSKI, Building an Archive of Sarawakian Music: A Dialogue Between Ethnographic and Educational Methodologies. ( Panel presentation) “If we think that archives help to transmit information and values across generations, then why are discussions of pedagogy not central to discussions of archiving?” As so expressed during a 2006 paper session on “Intangible Resources of the (Non-­‐)Western World,” presented at the De Balie center for culture, politics, and the arts in Amsterdam, educational issues have remained in the shadows of archival discussions—largely overcast by debates about intellectual property rights, copyright law, and other matters related to the commercialization of traditional performing arts. This paper aims to address issues of learning—as opposed to issues of earning—through the thoughtful archiving of non-­‐Western traditions. Serving as a case in point will be my own construction of an audio and video archive of music from East Kalimantan, Indonesia and Sarawak, Malaysia to be deposited with the Sarawak Office of Traditions and Customs. What is the b est approach to archiving non-­‐named repertoire? How do we devise a system that will indicate links between pieces of repertoire that are variously named from community to community without violating the integrity of that repertoire as emblematic of local identity? What are some options for establishing a s ystem of archiving and classifying materials that is both accurate from a local perspective and useful from an academic one, as students, scholars, and teachers aim to discern and articulate patterns that link artistic and social communities? 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 17 Ultimately, the paper a ims to h elp bring ethnographic and broadly educational a gendas to a fruitful rapprochement in the archival process. Biographical note Gini Gorlinski specializes in the musics of Malaysian and Indonesian Borneo. She has worked most extensively with Kenyah peoples, focusing on the traditions of sampé’ (plucked lute) playing and epic-­‐singing (kerintuk). Her broader interests include links between music and landscape; popularization and commoditization of rural traditions; and the social and spiritual dimensions of ritual (including song) languages. Gini is currently the music and dance editor for Encyclopaedia Britannica in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., and a curatorial consultant for the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A. Made Mantle HOOD, Negotiating the Archives: Preserving and Publishing Central Javanese Gamelan Field Recordings. This paper explores the n egotiations that led to the digitalisation and publication of one the earliest and largest collections of late 1950s Central Javanese field recordings made by ethnomusicologist, Mantle Hood. The collection of 164 reel-­‐to-­‐reel tapes contains representative realizations of the improvisatory performance practice of gamelan musicians in both orchestral and private lesson contexts. As a key determinant of Hood’s recording method, he intentionally used individual microphone placement to highlight otherwise inaudible aspects of orchestral performance. This ‘amplification’ process has resulted in distinctive study recordings for the analysis of improvisation. In 2007, the first commercial release of these field recordings was published through the Wergo label in an attempt to highlight some of the intentions of the collector. Further publications are planned to highlight orchestral practice as practiced during this pivotal time when conservatory training emerged in Central Java. In this paper, I p osition myself as both a researcher a nd an inheritor of the collection with research objectives and ethical responsibilities. Using the ‘Manesar Mandate’ as a guide, this paper examines how American, German and Indonesian agendas are negotiated to best serve both local Central Javanese musicians and international researchers while simultaneously appeasing the needs of a German institution and record company. Biographical note Made Mantle Hood finished his doctoral degree at the University of Cologne in 2005 on Balinese temple music. While studying in Cologne he was the recipient of both a one-­‐year Fulbright and a two-­‐year DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst) scholarship and served as research assistant at the Berlin Phonogram Archive documenting and analyzing early f ield recordings from Indonesia. He is currently Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at Monash University School of Music Conservatorium and has p resented research papers on ‘musical diversity’ and the ‘negotiation of tradition’ at international conferences including the Society of Ethnomusicology, East-­‐West Centre and the Musicological Society of Australia. Gisa JAEHNICHEN, Audiovisual Documents as Ethnomusicological Sources in Southeast Asia. All around the world, archiving and documentation is a discipline of increasing importance for ethnomusicological studies. Southeast Asian music cultures contributed from the very beginning of recorded sound to the collections of museums and universities far away from their origin. Meanwhile, a large amount of audiovisual recordings from Southeast Asia is travelling in the shape of digital files around the globe and is leading a nomadic existence on many private computers. 18 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
Only a small percentage of initially intended field recordings of the last few decades made by researchers from the region and from abroad reached seriously working archives or at least some reliably working research institutions. An even smaller percentage of it is accessible as archive item in the region itself. Thus, the world of audiovisual proofs for ethnomusicological research in Southeast Asia becomes “really virtual” for those who are working in Southeast Asia. The sheer amount of recordings accessible through internet platforms obscures the fact that unelaborated audiovisual recordings are not yet “documents”, which they may become through descriptive classifying, processing, preserving, and careful managing. For many cultures of remote areas in Southeast Asia, where literature, music and dance are orally transmitted, institutions such as archives and media libraries are of utmost significance. They have to take over a guiding role, comparable to publishing h ouses in the world of print media, in close co-­‐
operation with researchers and networking institutions. As well as printed editions, audiovisual documents need to be updated and regularly re-­‐collected. Therefore, they need to be supported in a qualified way by ethnomusicologists regardless of their institutional affiliation. Examples from remote areas in Lao provinces will illustrate some thoughts discussed in this paper, which summarizes regional issues of archiving and d ocumentation. Biographical note: See Gisa Jaehnichen under the Theme: S ilat. Belinda Maria SALAZAR, The Digitization Project of Filipino Composers’ Music Scores at the Philippine Women’s University. Filipino composers’ music scores form an important part of the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) Music Heritage Collection. The digitization project of Filipino composers’ music scores which I am currently undertaking at PWU, a ims to preserve a s well as provide a ccess to valuable Filipiniana materials for performing artists and scholars. PWU and the Philippines in general, have rich Philippine music resources, which prompt the need to establish a modern system such as that provided b y d igital technology. In this paper, I explain important details in the systematic, swift and inexpensive process in the storage and retrieval of Filipino composers’ music scores found in the PWU School of Music. I d etail with visual examples the process of digitizing used, including the decisions that have to be made with regard to the unique conditions and situations encountered with the different materials on hand such as assortment of s izes, color of paper, a ge of scores, binding d efects and p ollutants. I also include in the paper the image storage classification I employ so far, in consideration of its use for music performance and scholarship. The digitization project at PWU covers more than a hundred works by Filipino composers like National Artist for Music Lucrecia R. Kasilag, Rosalinda Abejo, Rosendo Santos and Eliseo Pajaro. Biographical note Belinda Maria Salazar is a faculty member of the Philippine Women’s University School of Music where she also finished both her undergraduate and graduate studies in piano performance. She trained in multimedia arts and communications under the Philippine Advertising Counselors and Jesuit Communications. She took up graduate courses in media at the Ateneo Communications Department and finished her Master of Arts in Religious Studies (focus on media ethics) from the Maryhill School of Theology. Currently, she is a graduate student in ethnomusicology at the PWU. She brings with her a variety of experiences having performed in different countries, as well as working for many years as a missionary, experiencing intercultural living and communications with various Philippine ethnolinguistic groups, and doing multimedia works, website development and virtual training. 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 19 Theme: New Research ABDUL HAMID Adnan, A Semiotic Analysis of Melodic Characteristics of P. Ramlee’s Songs. P. Ramlee was a talented and prolific Malay born musician. His accomplishment as a Malay musician and song composer was closely connected to Malay movies in which he had been involved. Focusing on the melodies composed by P. Ramlee, this researcher analysed the melodies using the techniques of repetition, variation, contrast, and s equence. All the techniques used in the melodies were examined based on the semiotics theory of Charles Sanders Pierce (1831-­‐ 1914). This theory emphasizes the usage of a triadic system such as representamen, interpretant, and object, which are related to the theoretical trichotomies as Peircean theory revealed the significant signs such as: icon, index, and s ymbol as the second trichotomy, the signs that are related with these signs such as qualisign, sinsign, and legisign as the first trichotomy, the signs such as rheme, dicisign and augument as the third trichotomy. All these signs were utiliised in the analysis when interpretating the melodies of P. Ramlee. The research has used two methods in analysing the data, that of quantitative and qualitative methods. The qualitative method involves the analisis of data which are obtained from the melodies, and the quantitative method involves the interpretation of the data itself. The relevant conclusions on the melodies of this composer will b e d iscussed. Biographical Note Abdul Hamid Adnan, was a music teacher in the service of the government of Malaysia from 1988 to 2003. He joined University of Malay as a SLAB Tutor in 2003 and pursued research about P. Ramlee. His principal research interests include musical semiotics, Malay contemporary music and he has just completed writing a Ph.D thesis, entitled P. Ramlee Songs: Semiotic Analysis on Melody and Lyrics. His published works are Muzik Caklempong (2004) a nd articles in several music theory and semiotics journals. Lilymae F. MONTANO, G ong Tradition, Trade, and Tourism in Ifugao Province, Philippines. Flat gongs called gangha are valuable musical instruments among the Ifugao people living in the highland region of northern Philippines. In this research report, I d iscuss the interconnectedness of flat gongs with Ifugao tradition, trade, and tourism specifically in the town of Banaue, the heritage site of majestic rice terraces and center of tourism in Ifugao province. My study shows that cultural tourism sponsored by government is vital in the continuance of gong performance although in new contexts; and that the craft of gong-­‐making and gong trading vis-­‐à-­‐vis the holding of local festivals for tourists greatly contribute to the sustainability of Ifugao gong tradition. An Ifugao gong ensemble may consist of three to four instruments namely, tabob which is the largest gong and the first one to b e played in the ensemble; hibat, the s econd gong; and ahhot, the third a nd last gong. The ensemble is traditionally performed with dance during agricultural rites and festive occasions as well as for funeral procession of the rich. Biographical note Lilymae F. Montano teaches at the University of the Philippines and Philippine Women’s University where she teaches courses in Philippine Music and Kulintang performance. She finished her Master of Music degree in Musicology at the University of the Philippines in 2008 with a thesis on Ifugao gongs of northern Philippines. 20 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
Rebekah E. MOORE, Practicing Belonging in the Balinese Indie Music Scene. Projects in ethnomusicology often examine musical performance as a means to communicate shared values based on factors like nationality, religion, race, gender, and class. This paper suggests people also form social alliances based on shared understandings of music. In Bali, Indonesia, a distinctly non-­‐commercial indie music scene is thriving. The scene, comprised of individuals who share a DIY ethic and disdain for the monolithic mainstream of Indonesia’s popular music industry, has established a local music market comparable in output and genre diversity to major indie markets in Java. Commercial recognition and financial success are tangential issues for scene members, however. What, specifically, preoccupies them is key to understanding the scene’s historical growth and s taying power. This paper presents dissertation research in progress in Denpasar, Bali, where for twenty months I am examining a range of indie scene activities including rehearsals, performances, recording sessions, album production and promotion, tours, and ritual “hanging out” (nongkrong). These practices are conduits by which core ideals of musical—and, consequently, social—difference are created and shared. Scene members, including musicians, band managers, journalists, publicists, producers, and sound engineers, as well as informal support teams comprised of band members’ families and friends, are primary facilitators for scene sustainability. Scene membership is a matter of choice, and continued “enrollment” is contingent upon engagement with particular thematic preoccupations. Subjectivities, including work ethic ( etika kerja) artistic integrity ( kejujuran artistik), genre (aliran), creativity (kreativitas), and talent (bakat) are implicated in processes of differentiation as individuals shape and d ebate scene boundaries. Biographical note Rebekah E. Moore is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology with a minor in museum studies at Indiana University. She commenced dissertation research in Bali, Indonesia in October 2008 with the aid of a Fulbright Foundation scholarship. Her dissertation examines the post-­‐bomb indie music scene. She received her B.A. in music from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and M.A. in music with a concentration in ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland. Other research interests include indigenous rights and popular music, with a focus on Sámi music in Finland; American and European popular music and politics; and found object p lastic arts. MUMTAZ Begum Aboo Backer, Passing on Traditions: The Survival of ‘Gidda’-­‐ The Dance of the Punjabi Women in Penang. This paper looks at the popularity of the Gidda, the dance of the Punjabi women of the Sikh community. The Gidda, which means ‘clapping’ is danced according to the bholeyan or bhol (lyrical tunes), which is accompanied by the rhythmic beats of the dholak or dhol (smaller drums). The Gidda is famously p erformed during the Baisakhi festival annually not only in the state of Punjab but throughout the world where there is a significant Sikh community. It is a group dance consisting of more than four women. However, in the advent of modernity, Gidda in its simplicity started waning, began loosing its p opularity a mong the younger generation. This paper surveys the practice of Gidda generally and tends to narrow down its focus to the dance as a performance, some changes it has undergone in order to survive the contemporary and at the same time engage the attention and participation of the younger generation specifically in the state of Penang. 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 21 Biographical note Mumtaz Begum is attached to the Drama & Theatre Department of University Science Malaysia. She is a caring educator, practitioner, researcher and scholar. Mumtaz is trained in Bharata Natyam, silat, Minang dances and contemporary techniques. She has worked with leading choreographers and directors in Penang. Trained as a mental health facilitator, she incorporates the art of listening, empathizing and understanding into her daily teaching activities. Her passion is to empower the less fortunate people. Currently, she’s working with children diagnosed with m ild spasticity, Down Syndrome and traumatized children who a lso have to cope with learning disabilities. She utilizes dance, creative movements, and story telling as a form of therapy to empower children with special n eeds and a lso women at crisis centers. NG Ting Hsiang, Developing Gamelan Virtual Instruments for Modern Music. Samples of violin and piano are predominantly found in most virtual instruments libraries available today, if not all. Gamelan virtual instruments are a rarity in comparison, which unfortunately means it does not reach the masses. This project aims to augment the range of musical instruments available to a wide community of composers who use the industry standard audio editing platform, Avid Digidesign-­‐Pro Tools. By analyzing, recording, and virtualising traditional South East Asian instruments, this project will create digital equivalents of instruments that modern composers do not have easy a ccess to. Modern composers embrace the use of virtual instruments for the reason that it a llows auditioning during the creation of compositions and also the efficiency of utilizing virtual instruments in the demanding music production of the fast expanding media business. This project aims to develop gamelan virtual instruments based on Javanese gamelan, which aid in promoting rich palette of sounds to support the growing community of innovative composers and music makers, thus creating d iversity but not limiting to fusion music/ film scoring/ song writing and in other various forms of music composition. Biographical note Ng Ting Hsiang is currently an A cademic Staff of Republic Polytechnic, School of Technology for the A rts (STA), Singapore. H e is responsible for creating course content and teaching students f rom the Diploma in Sonic A rts program. A graduate of the Music Technology program from LASALLE College of the Arts, Ting Hsiang is also an accomplished jazz musician and has experience performing with, and composing for, gamelan ensembles in Singapore. Pamela COSTES ONISHI and Hideaki ONISHI, Issues on Authenticity and the Traditional Contextualized Within the Specificities of the Philippine Kulintang Music’s Global/Local Traffic. The concepts of authenticity and the traditional are becoming more and more slippery in this globalized age. When situated within the phenomena of transnational movements of people and swift exchanges b etween cultural practices, it b ecomes impossible to adhere to a fixed d efinition of what are authentic and traditional without essentializing the culture b earers or ‘ethnic artists’. This paper takes into account the present transnational and global conditions in answering the questions of ‘what is authentic’ and ‘what is traditional’ in music. It acknowledges the inevitability of redefining these concepts as history changes and individuals or groups rapidly dislocate across the globe. The paper emphasizes specific needs among individuals to create or reinvent traditions in order to, ironically, locate themselves within the very phenomenon that refuses any fixed d efinition. 22 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
The case study is the Kulintang, a gongs and drum ensemble from the Philippines, and how American-­‐born Filipinos use it to create nostalgia without memory. It also follows the path of a traditional master musician and how, as the sole bearer of his musical traditions in the United States, h e became a ware of himself as a positioned subject. Two methodologies are proposed: (1) a Five-­‐Way Global/Local traffic model showing the uniqueness of circumstances surrounding the subjects as they move in and out of the complex web of the present global era; and (2) a comparative musical analysis of the kulintang as it is known traditionally and the changes in the p erformance styles of its emerging n ew traditions. Biographical notes Pamela Costes-­‐Onishi received her doctorate in ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, Seattle. She studied kulintang at the University of the Philippines and with master musicians such as Aga Mayo Butocan, Kanapia Kalanduyan, and Danongan Kalanduyan. She has presented and published topics on Philippine traditional music in the schools and Filipino American music-­‐making. Costes-­‐Onishi is currently the co-­‐director of the Sari-­‐Sari Philippine music ensemble based in Singapore and a Lecturer at the Center for American Education, Singapore. Hideaki Onishi earned a Ph.D. in music theory at the University of Washington, Seattle. H e has presented and published papers on the music of Boulez, Ligeti, Messiaen, and Takemitsu in Asia, Europe, and the United States. He began playing kulintang in 2001, and has studied with Danny Kalanduyan, Kanapia Kalanduyan, Aga Mayo Butocan, and Pamela Costes-­‐Onishi. He has recently been working on an interdisciplinary research on kulintang with Costes-­‐Onishi, combining theoretical and ethnomusicological approaches. Onishi is currently assistant professor at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore and co-­‐director of Sari-­‐Sari, the first kulintang ensemble in Singapore. Jacqueline PUGH-­‐KITINGAN, KadazanDusun Gong Ensembles in the Ethnographic Mapping of Tambunan, Sabah, Malaysia. This paper presents some of the findings from the FRGS project The Ethnographic and Cultural Mapping of Sabah, Malaysia. Part 1: Tambunan District that was carried out from 2007 to 2009, b y the Kadazandusun Chair, UMS, together with researchers from UKM, the GIS Laboratory of the School of Social Sciences at UMS, and members of the Kadazandusun community of Tambunan in the interior of Sabah. This is believed to be the first detailed ethnographic mapping project conducted in Malaysia. The paper examines the gong ensembles found in the different areas of the Tambunan District. They are compared and contrasted in terms of the numbers and types of gongs in each, gong nomenclature, and the inclusion or absence of a drum in each ensemble, as well as music. The ensembles are p laced in the context of their respective village and dialect group, and the migration routes of Dusunic peoples into the Tambunan area in ancient times from named origin points. Biographical note Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jacqueline Pugh-­‐Kitingan (B.A.Honours, Monash University; Ph.D, University of Queensland) is an ethnomusicologist who holds the Kadazndusun Chair at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, and is an Associate Professor in the university’s School of Social Sciences. She is Adjunct Research Fellow in Anthropology in the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, and is the Regional Vice President for Sabah of the Borneo Research Council. Her original field of research was the music of the Huli people of Papua New Guinea. Married to a m ember of the Kadazandusun community of Tambunan, she has spent around 30 years studying the music and cultures of indigenous communities in Sabah, Malaysia. 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 23 RAJA ISKANDAR Bin Raja Halid, “NOBAT TABAL” – The Music t hat Installs a Sultan. In the Throne Hall of the Iskandariah Palace, the Sultan sits motionless on the dais while the nobat orchestra (royal orchestra of the Malay Sultan) s tarts to play a musical piece (lagu). It is traditionally believed that this special piece would d etermine the legitimacy and length of the n ew Sultan’s rule. Considered as the most significant piece among the sixteen lagu in the Royal Nobat of Perak’s repertoire, “Nobat Tabal” as the title implies, is played during the most important ceremony of all – the pertabalan ( installation) of the Sultan. The duration that the Sultan has to sit out is measured b y a repeated rhythmic sequence or ragam called man. There has been confusion, even among nobat musicians as to the actual meaning and function of man. It has been termed as “series of notes” or “tunes” (Linehan, 1951) and used to describe the repertoire (P.M. Sharifuddin & Abdul Latif, 1977). This paper looks into this unique piece and what man actually stands for, based on interviews with the nobat musicians (orang kalur) and practical d emonstrations by Toh S etia Guna Abdul Aziz, leader of the royal orchestra. Biographical note Raja Iskandar lectures at the Faculty of Creative Technologies and Heritage, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Malaysia. H e holds an M.A. (Ethnomusicology) and B.A. (Music Technology) from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, and Diploma in Music from Akademi Seni Kebangsaan (ASWARA). His teaching and research interests include Malay Performing A rts, Malay Nobat and Music Technology. TOH Lai Chee, Teaching and Learning of gamelan Music t hrough Multiple Intelligences. Howard Gardner's "Theory of Multiple Intelligences" recognizes the diverse competencies of human intelligences, and suggests eight different potential pathways ways to knowing and learning. According to this theory, each individual is capable of learning and solving problems through language, logical mathematical analyses, visual -­‐spatial illustrations, musical experiences, physical engagements, an interpersonal understanding of others, an intrapersonal knowledge of s elf, and an experience in the natural world. This paper focuses on the teaching and learning of gamelan music using a variety of strategies and approaches from multiple entry points to develop the students’ musical intelligence, in the playing of the gamelan instruments predominantly, and other intelligences subsequently. Based on the experiential approach, students explore the musical pieces played by notating the pitches through visual illustrations. The strategies used encompass singing as in oral tradition; observing and analyzing visual illustrations of the musical piece; playing musical and floor games which incorporates physical movements and singing; practicing the techniques of playing saron and bonang on p icture cards; collaborative learning, and h ands-­‐on playing on the gamelan instruments. This research involves three case studies comprising Form Two students from three secondary schools in Penang, Malaysia. Qualitative methods used in this research include observation, participant observation, focus group interviews, and video d ocumentation of s tudents’ p erformance of understanding. Instruments used to further triangulate the findings include questionnaires and the Multiple Intelligence Development Assessment Scale ( MIDAS) b y Branton Shearer (1994). 24 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
Initial findings demonstrate that more students are able to acquire the skill in playing gamelan instruments through rich learning experiences, and instructional strategies that match the student’s intelligence strengths. The “matching system” engages students in exploring and learning more musical instruments in the gamelan ensemble, thus developing their musical intelligence. Various learning strategies used also foster and stimulate the development of the students’ other intelligences. Biographical note Toh Lai Chee obtained her MA in Ethnomusicology from Universiti Sains Malaysia and is presently attached to the Music Department (Penang campus) of the Malaysian Teachers’ Training Institute. She is also involved in the teaching of gamelan music to primary school children under the Teaching School programme o rganized by the institute. She is currently writing her PhD thesis on music education, entitled Teaching and Learning of Music through Multiple Intelligences. TSAI, Ted Tsung-­‐Te, Sufism Healing and Religious Chant in Java: A Medical Ethnomusicological Study. Except for western authentic medical treatment, religion and music are the most popular healing methods in the world. Many patients who cannot be cured by authentic medicine try to resolve their physiological and psychological problems by religion. Music also has the power to change people’s physiological and psychological status. As an ethnomusicologist, Philip Schuyler states that music can have a transformative psychological and physical effect on performers and listeners alike. The effect is clearest in the case of altered states of consciousness—commonly called trance or possession—in religious rituals, both as a manifestation of the divine and as a means of healing illness. Foods, movement, physical s etting and other factors in rituals may contribute to the h ealing, but music is always an essential component. In Indonesia, Islamic rituals, where religious chant p lays an important role, are popular opportunities for healing. Especially in Java, when Muslims cannot h ave the authentic medical care, they may s ee the religious healing as the last hope of social healthcare s ystem. Not only does the religious healing become an important treatment to physiological body, but the religious chant also plays an essential role of psychological placebo. It is very difficult to generalize the Sufism h ealing in Java, b ecause each imam or h ealer has his own ways of h ealing. Nevertheless close examinations of a few cases will provide clues to understand the role of Sufism healing in Javanese society. Based on the examination of tariqahs of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), this paper aims to explore the characteristics and functions of Sufism healing and religious chant as music-­‐like. The paper will be divided into following parts: 1) medical theory in classical Islamic thoughts, 2) the Islamic medical theory and remedy of the tariqahs in Java, and 3) the use and function of Islamic chant during the h ealing process in Java. Biographical note Tsung-­‐Te Tsai completed his Ph.D. in 1998 at the University of Maryland and now is a p rofessor and director of the graduate program of Ethnomusicology, Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan, and also a secretary general of the ICTM Regional Committee Taiwan. In the past years, he has conducted research projects in “Tradition and Modernity: A Case Study of Sufi Musical Culture in Indonesia.” Having conducted field research in Indonesia, Iran, and Uzbekistan, he has published three books in Chinese about Tradition and Modernity of Islamic Music Culture in Indonesia, Music Culture of the Islamic World, and Music and Dance of Silk Road. 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 25 Christine Yun-­‐May YONG, Contesting Boundaries of the Malay Gamelan: The Postcolonial Response of Rhythm in Bronze. The earliest written account about the gamelan tradition in Malaysia stems back to the royal court of Pahang in 1895, where Resident General of the F ederated Malay S tates Frank Swettenham wrote of his encounter with a Joget dance, accompanied by an all-­‐male gamelan ensemble. The Joget gamelan, as the tradition was known then, continued to develop within the Pahang court and was later brought over and expanded to the state of Terengganu through royal marriages. In 1941, World War II and the Japanese Occupation brought an abrupt halt to the Joget gamelan tradition before its revival came about in 1971 a long side the formation of the controversial National Cultural Policy. The revival of the gamelan brought about a re-­‐learning and the institutionalisation of gamelan repertoire, where it was renamed the ‘traditional Malay gamelan’ and recognised as an inherent part of Malaysia’s national culture. In 1997, away from the constructs of the Malay gamelan and the National Cultural Policy, an ensemble called Rhythm in Bronze was formed, gaining popularity within urban Kuala Lumpur. The ensemble became known for its showcase of new compositions for the gamelan and new interpretations of traditional gamelan repertoire from Malaysia and the Indonesian regions of Java, Bali and Sunda. Recognised as a contemporary Malaysian gamelan ensemble and coupled with Rhythm in Bronze’s construct as an all-­‐female, multicultural membership, this paper discusses the postcolonial response of the ensemble to the boundaries d enoted b y tradition and the cultural policy. Biographical note Christine Yun-­‐May Yong previously worked for PUSAKA, the centre for the study and documentation of traditional performance in Malaysia. Now a Masters candidate at the University of Malaya’s Cultural Centre, she is under the supervision of Prof. Md Anis. ROUNDTABLE Cultural Studies and Music/Dance Analysis: On t he Utility and F utility of Postmodern Approaches t o Southeast Asian Performing Arts Case Studies: SUMARSAM, Binary Division in Javanese Gamelan and Socio-­‐Cosmological Order. A division has long been recognized between the study of music as sound structure detached from social structure and the study that embraces the notion of inextricable link between musical structure and social structure. The tendency to put back together the split and various new trajectories of the discourse have b een emerging, though opposing views also remain. My paper revisits the study of gamelan as metaphor of social and cosmological order. I will expand the discourse and fill the gap on issues that have not been discussed in previous studies. In the paper, I will use binary taxonomy as a conceptual framework to reveal dynamism in musical and social interactions. My assumption is that b inary-­‐ness of the music is the conceptual basis for which the overall complex stylistic, multi-­‐layered processual nature of gamelan performance operates. The concept of dualism also stands out in Javanese social and cosmological order. In this regard, a 26 ｜ 1 Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia st
balanced opposite or d ynamic complementary binary, instead of a d iametrically opposed dualism, is the hallmark of the society that shapes the overall complex networking of social relations. With making reference to the works of historians and anthropologists, I will conclude that coherences of sound structure as social structure can b e revealed through the concept of b inary division. Biographical note Sumarsam is Adjunct Professor of Music at Wesleyan University, t eaching performance, theory, and history of gamelan. He holds a MA in music from Wesleyan and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. He is the author of numerous a rticles on gamelan and wayang. H is book, Gamelan: Cultural Interaction and Musical Development in Central Java was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1995 (Indonesian version was published in 2003, Pustaka Pelajar Press, Yogyakarta). His recent research includes the issues of Islam in Javanese performing arts and historical link between the d evelopment of East Javanese and Central Javanese gamelan. He is also writing a book tentatively entitled Javanese Performing Arts in Motion: Gamelan and the West. As a gamelan musician and a keen amateur of dhalang in Javanese wayang k ulit, he p erforms, conduct workshops, and lectures throughout the US and other countries. Birgit ABELS, Nomadic Explorations, Musical Worlds: Performing Arts, Identity, Space. The (formerly) s eagoing Sama Dilaut of Borneo and Tawi-­‐Tawi (Sulu Archipelago) make sense of the world not b y means of maps and h istoriographies, but by means of itineraries and chains of events. In this paper I discuss the dynamic relationship between the perception of space, "traveling concepts" and the p erforming arts among the Sama Dilaut. Music and dance are central to Sama Dilaut identity. Despite the national border separating them, the two Sama Dilaut communities mentioned above are closely related; although geographic location is relevant for the Sama Dilaut, it is incidental. Their permanently modifiable coordinates have been a means of structuring physical space that is different from that of most land-­‐based communities. Emphasizing a mode of negotiation that finds its most relevant reference in a continuous movement defines the univers de discours in which Sama Dilaut cultural identity is continually reconstructed. Music and dance are conduits for expressing these reconstructions that localize the self "in-­‐between" rather than "here or there." Musical meaning is not found primarily in musical roots, but in musical routes, to paraphrase Paul Gilroy. After identifying certain musical developments in recent decades, I turn to models of spatial theory and cultural flows in order to sound out their usefulness for understanding these changes. What is music's role for Sama Dilaut notions of Self and Other, historically and contemporarily? How far can spatial theory h elp with an a ttempt to understand identity n egotiation? Biographical note Dr Birgit Abels is currently a research fellow in Cultural Musicology at the University of Amsterdam and the International Institute for Asian Studies, Amsterdam. She earned her doctoral degree at Ruhr University Bochum (Germany). Before that she studied Music and Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental Studies (SOAS), University of London, among others. While most of her work centers on issues of identity construction through music, the geographic focus of her research is the Pacific islands (particularly Micronesia) and the Southeast Asian island world. She has conducted on-­‐site research in North India, Palau, and Sabah/Borneo (Malaysia). __________________________________________________________________________________________ 1st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia ｜ 27