Music & Dance of Bali

Gamelan Sekar Jaya is a fifty member ensemble of musicians and dancers, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, that specializes in the performing arts of Bali, Indonesia. It is recognized internationally as the finest Balinese gamelan ensemble outside of Indonesia. (Indonesias Tempo Magazine)

**Artists-in-residence for the Spring 2007 Season **

I Putu Putrawan, is one of Bali’s most vibrant young
composers, from Munduk in North Bali. Putu has performed in
festivals and ceremonies across Bali; has composed for the gamelan
orchestra of Munduk, and accompanied them to Europe for concerts
and residency activities. Recently, he and his wife Ida Ayu established a
music and dance studio, Sanggar Tripitaka in Munduk for which he
teaches and performs.
He will be joined by Ida Ayu Ketut Suciawani, born in North Bali to an
artistically gifted family, is now one of Bali’s most noted dancers—
especially for her performance of Taruna Jaya,the challenging early
20th-century dance. She has performed throughout Indonesia,
and in 1997 joined the Munduk gamelan in local festivals and
international tours. Ida Ayu has dedicated herself to teaching
at Sanggar Tripitaka in Munduk, a community music and dance
center established with her husband Putu.

Gamelan Sekar Jaya, an internationally acclaimed group of musicians and dancers, has made the performing arts of Bali its specialty. Founded in 1979, the group has presented more than four hundred concerts throughout California and on tours around the United States as well as to Canada, Mexico, and Bali itself. Its performances in Baliin venues ranging from the Art Center in the capital city of Denpasar to remote village squareshave been greeted with wild enthusiasm by local audiences, artists, and media. The groups success arises not only from its devotion to traditional repertoire but from its innovative work. Over the past twenty-seven years, it has sponsored the creation of more than sixty major new works for gamelan and dance, created both by the Balinese artists who have joined the ensemble as guest directors and by U.S.-based artists. The groups passion for innovation has found expression in many collaborative projects, bringing the group together with theater artists, puppeteers, dancers from other traditions, composers of music for silent films, and symphony orchestras. These new works have won critical acclaim on both sides of the Pacific. The Boston Globe wrote, The success of this group has far exceeded its founders wildest dreams as the ensemble has become an honored participant in the evolution of Balis musical culture. During the groups fourth tour to Bali (June-July 2000), it was selected to receive the Dharma KusumaBalis highest award for artistic achievement, never before given to a foreign group.

GSJ HAS 5 ENSEMBLES
G a m e l a n G o n g K e b y a r

The music of the Gamelan Gong Kebyar exploits the particular capabilities of the instruments in the ensemble. The 10-key range of the 4 pemades, 4 kantilans and the ugal make broad and adventurous melodies possible. The reyong, composed of twelve small gongs, or "pots" and played by four musicians, is used in a number of ways which make a salient contribution to the music. Sometimes it bursts free from the texture to play dazzling "solos" (quartets, actually, since there are four musicians involved) on its own. Another characteristic reyong sound is ocak-ocakan, a combination of 8 pots sounded together in a brassy chord and combined with the kendang and cengceng. The pots are also played on the lower rim, which results in a sound similar to that of the cengceng. And of course it also plays along melodically, fitting in with the rest of the ensemble in a

G a m e l a n A n g k l u n g

At temple festivals, the exuberance of the 4-tone gamelan angklung's melodies ring out in bold contrast to the solemn and grave lelambatan compositions often heard playing simultaneously right across the courtyard. While to many outsiders the slendro-derived tuning of the gamelan produces a mood of playfulness and charm, to the Balinese it is sentimental, bittersweet, and an indispensable component of the atmosphere at any meaningful ceremony.</P>

G a m e l a n G e n d e r W a y a n g

Music to support shadow puppet plays.

G a m e l a n J e g o g

Bamboo grown in west Bali reaches monstrous proportions the likes of which are not known elsewhere on the island. This quirk of nature has been exploited by local musicians with the creation of the gamelan jegog, so named for the remarkable jegogan that is the sonic core of the ensemble. Individual tubes on these may stretch to an incredible meters in length, with circumferences of 60-65 centimeters. They are so unwieldy that a pair of musicians must sit on top of the frame of the instrument in order to play it. It requires quite a pounding with thick rubber beaters to coax music out of them, but what finally emerges is a sound so powerful that it seems to enter the body through the stomach rather than the ears.</P>

G a m e l a n J o g e d

The Balinese gamelans that use bamboo tubes or slats rather than bronze slabs for keys are the true folk music of Bali, in the sense that they were never courtly arts. This in no way implies, however, that the music made on them is in any way simpler or less rigorous in construction. It is only that the occasions on which they are played are more often impromptu and meant mostly to be for fun and diversion. Bamboo music is very much on an earthly plane, refreshingly free of any pretenses to sublimity.

http://tribes.tribe.net/gamelansekarjaya