Hurly Burly Bali Gamelan
In writing my dissertation some time ago I argued that it was inappropriate in my study of wayang performers improvisation in Java to try and understand a performing art by becoming a practitioner. In any learning environment, I argued, the accommodation and innovation alters the original and distorts one’s perceptions of the original tradition. Furthermore, I wrote, “I no longer feel certain that a “co-aesthetic” participation is a genuine possibility in ethnographic research because it assumes there is a mutual aesthetic that is the basis for the intercultural understanding” (30). By which I meant any attempt to understand a performing tradition by learning how its done assumed that it was possible to share some common artistic objective. At that time I did not see how it was feasible to accomplish some understanding when any performance that I made would be for different reasons and objectives than one made by a traditional performer.
I mention this all now because I was wrong and I was forcibly made aware of how very wrong I was when I watched I Ketut Gede Asnawa’s Balinese gamelan recital with students from his various classes at UIUC last Saturday. Watching the UIUC students approximate Balinese dance and music it was possible to see the flaws and the omissions or to simply say it’s done better in Bali, but these comments would miss the point because they miss what counts most to qualify as an authentic expression of Balinese art. My experience in the gamelan concert was like the Grinch looking down on Whoville, my small heart grew three sizes that day as I came to realize it is not the form of the dance, the look of the costume, or the sound of the gamelan that made the show Balinese, though there were penty of flashy costumes and dazzling sounds. Nor was it Bali gamelan because of where it happened, why it was done, or even who did it. It is Balinese gamelan when it expresses a certain hurly burly, exiting, dazzling fun, which is summed up in the word ramai in Bali. To Asnawa’s credit performers were certainly accomplished enough to put on a great show, not because they were comparable to a Balinese performer in skill, rather they were skilled enough to make it look fun. They were not quoting or approximating some more genuine performance elsewhere, they were doing it for themselves and each other and enjoying themselves while doing it. There was not a sense the group was struggling or straining to keep up, they were having a good time and it made you want to join in and dance and make music.
I was thinking these thoughts during the Joged dance as they brought audience members down to the stage to dance, and I was feeling very sorry that no one had invited me. It was easy to be envious of the dancers and musicians on stage and it was this feeling of wanting to belong I recognized from my brief time in Bali and when I remember seeing Balinese performances in the past. I recalled then that Balinese art has that effect on people. We just want to belong there, be accepted in the dance, be allowed to make music just like they do.
