Preeminant gamelan performer and scholar Sumarsam explores the concept of hybridity in performance traditions that have developed in the context of Javanese encounters with the West.
Javanese Gamelan and the West
studies the meaning, forms, and traditions of the Javanese performing arts as they developed and changed through their contact with Western culture. Authored by a gamelan performer, teacher, and scholar, the book traces the adaptations in gamelan art as a result of Western colonialism in nineteenth-century Java, showing how Western musical and dramatic practices were domesticated by Javanese performers creating hybrid Javanese-Western art forms, such as with the introduction of brass bands in
gendhing mares
court music and West Javanese
tanjidor
, and Western theatrical idioms in contemporary
wayang
puppet plays. The book also examines the presentation of Javanese gamelan to the West, detailing performances in World's Fairs and American academia and considering its influence on Western performing arts and musical and performance studies. The end result is a comprehensive treatment of the formation of modern Javanese gamelan and a fascinating look at how an art form dramatizes changes and developments in a culture.
Sumarsam is a UniversityProfessor of Music at Wesleyan University. He is the author of
Gamelan: Cultural Interaction and Musical Development in Central Java
(University of Chicago Press, 1995) and numerous articles in English and Indonesian. As a gamelan musician and a keenamateur
dhalang
(puppeteer) of Javanese
puppet play, he performs, conducts workshops, and lectures throughout the US, Australia, Europe, and Asia.