Week Three

In performing the piece titled "Ratna Ayu", the Balinese gamelan ensemble of the California Institute of the Arts brought a traditional Indonesian artform to the Western stage. Despite the possible religious and cultural significance behind the performance's musical and theatrical elements, the environment surrounding the event is entirely secular, especially considering that many members of the audience most likely have no Indonesian family heritage whatsoever. Also, the intimate stage setting here allows for there to be both 'soft' and 'loud' style musical instruments, which together are conducted by the dancers through movements ranging in dynamics and tempo. In this performance the gamelan ensemble is parted into two groups by the stage, and the both colorful and formal attire of the musicians camouflage them well behind their golden instruments and the purple stage lighting. The Balinese gamelan ensemble here is presented as accompaniment, as an aesthetic inseparable from its use in Balinese dance and drama.
Contrasting the former performance is the presentation by the Balinese Gamelan Nyepi ensemble. Unlike "Ratna Ayu", the gamelan ensemble here plays facing the ocean on a beach laden with tourists, is amassed together as a single group beneath some beach tents, and accompanies no extra-musical groups. In this outdoor setting members of the gamelan ensemble are dressed in white gowns with white headbans. The gamelan instruments are arranged with the smaller instruments nearest to the shore bordering the front of the group and the larger gongs oppositely forming the border at the ensemble's rear. Following a solo intoduction, the ensemble proceeds in its performance by developing the song with layered, interlocking percussion patterns that grow in both rhythmic and technical complexity. Surrounding the gamelan ensemble are observers with their cameras, shoppers wandering between nearby stalls, and people both walking along the coast and swimming through the waves of the ocean. In this scene the primary focus is on the gamelan music itself and its composition by trained professionals musically communicating with one another through melodic cues and signals given by the larger gongs. Instead of being viewed as a regional aesthetic, gamelan music here appears to be more of both a cultural tradition and carefully developed school of music.