AN AFTERNOON OF CENTRAL JAVANESE GAMELAN MUSIC AND LENGGER LANANG DANCE
GAMELAN PAKSI KENCANA
23 NOVEMBER 2024 3:00PM CANNON CHAPEL
Gamelan Paksi Kencana
WELCOME TO THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC AT EMORY UNIVERSITY
The Department of Music is profoundly grateful for the Friends of Music and their generous support of Music at Emory.
ABOUT TODAY’S PERFORMANCE
Today’s music is played on Paksi Kencana (Sacred Eagle), the set of instruments housed at Emory since 1997. The Gamelan musicians are members of the Emory Javanese Gamelan Ensemble Paksi Kenana (Sacred Eagle), and students of Culture and Arts of Indonesia (Mus 207), who learn about Javanese music and culture through performance.
Our performance this afternoon is truly special as we bring Rianto, a lengger lanang dancer from Banyumas, Indonesia, to Cannon Chapel. This is the last performance in his first US tour, which has seen him perform in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pittsburgh over the last two weeks. On the Emory campus, Rianto has offered workshops and discussions, engaged with students in a graduate seminar and three undergraduate courses. Rianto was also involved with events hosted by the Office of LGBT Life at Emory, the Asian Student Center, and the International Education Week at Emory.
We are grateful to Emory University’s Department of Music, Emory Initiative for Arts and Humanistic Inquiry, and the American Institution for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) for supporting our performance this evening. We are especially thankful to the staff at Cannon Chapel for allowing us to perform in this beautiful space.
Finally, our heartfelt gratitude to Rianto who has traveled thousands of miles to share the wonders and beauties of the lengger lanang dance tradition.
ABOUT
TONIGHT’S FEATURED PERFORMER
Rianto was born in 1981 in the village of Kaliori, Banyumas, Central Java. He trained in classical and folk Javanese dance traditions from a young age, specializing in lengger lanang, the cross gender form of lengger dance. Based in Indonesia and Japan, Rianto has worked with a wide spectrum of international choreographers, performance makers and arts companies while remaining dedicated to his classical training and to crafting a unique voice in contemporary Indonesian performing arts. Medium , his solo work in the contemporary dance style, has been programmed in 29 major international venues. His most recent work, Hijrah , premiered in 2022. He has undertaken artist residencies in leading venues across the Asia Pacific and Europe and has taught at chorographic centers and universities in Belgium, the Netherlands, Singapore, Japan and Australia. In 2020, Rianto founded Rumah Lengger in Banyumas to host dance workshops, hold discussions about the philosophy surrounding lengger practice and house historical artifacts of the dance form. Striving to rejuvenate the dance tradition, Rianto teaches lengger dance at local secondary schools in Java and internationally. Currently, he is involved in a project with the TrakLab at the Victorian College of the Arts which digitalizes movements in the dance.
DIRECTOR
Darsono hails from a prominent family of traditional Javanese performing arts. Through his family, Darsono studied karawitan , a genre of music played with the gamelan ensemble, and the revered art of wayang kulit , shadow puppetry theater. He continued to study the traditional performing arts of Java at the Institut Seni Indonesia Surakarta, the national conservatory of the arts in Surakarta. Today, he is one of the most prominent musicians of karawitan , inside and outside of the city of Surakarta. At the royal court of Mangkunegaran, he served as the main drummer for classical
ABOUT
wears a red mask symbolizing Klana’s intensity, masculinity, and power, while court dance repertoire. In the surrounding villages, he has been regularly featured as an accompanying musician at shadow puppet theatre performances. At his alma mater, he taught and inspired many young generations of musicians who were mesmerized by his improvisational practices on several instruments of the gamelan.
Darsono’s first opportunity to perform abroad was when he joined the original troupe for Robert Wilson’s I La Galigo in 2004, a musical theater production based on a myth from Sulawesi, Indonesia. Ever since, he has traveled widely as a teacher and performer of music as well as a dhalang (puppet master) in Europe, the US, and Asia. In the U.S., Darsono has been appointed as an artist-in-residence at several institutions, including Wesleyan University, Smith College, Tufts University, Yale University and Bates College. More recently, he served as a Visiting Scholar at Cornell University.
LENGGER LANANG
Lengger lanang is a traditional dance form from Banyumas, a southern region of Central Java, Indonesia. Lengger refers to the dance form itself whereas lanang means male. While lengger has been more commonly practiced by women in the past several decades, its original form is believed to have been practiced by male dancers who danced as women in agricultural rituals. This was to overcome the taboos that forbade women who had begun menstruation to take part. The Lengger Lanang dance form — as well as its dancing bodies, in which both masculinity and femininity can reside fluidly and harmoniously together — have been seen as sakti: spiritually sacred and divinely blessed. They are considered to be directly connected to Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice and fertility, in Javanese cultural beliefs and spiritual practices. Today, the dance form continues to be practiced as part of agricultural rituals to mark the harvest season, express thanksgiving for the bounty, and ask blessings from the divine powers that watch over the lives of people in Banyumas. Outside of such rituals, lengger lanang is also performed as entertainment at events such as weddings and parties. As a cross-gender genre, it creates a space where the culturally constructed notions of masculinity and femininity can be explored.
LENGGER IN RECENT HISTORY
Lengger is believed to be a centuries-old tradition, undergoing many transformations in response to the changing socio-political landscape. During the Dutch colonial period in the late 19th and early 20th century, lengger was often practiced exclusively by female dancers as entertainment to both European visitors and local audiences, which gave the dance an unseemly reputation. During the New Order era (1965-1998) under Indonesia’s second president, Suharto, lengger, among other folk arts, was associated with communist movements, and was widely banned. Many lengger lanang dancers were exiled and killed during this time, putting the tradition itself in risk of extinction.
Rianto, born in 1981, found several of last surviving lengger dancers, both male and female, who passed down the arts, philosophy, and rituals of lengger lanang to him. Today, he is considered one of the forerunners in preserving and furthering the practice of lengger lanang in Indonesia. In recent time, lengger lanang is also facing challenges as Java, like much of Indonesia, becomes increasingly conservative in its practice of Islam, moving away from an earlier syncretic form that merged the religion with pre-existing Hindu, Buddhist, and Animist practices. In this socio-cultural, political and religious landscape, strict gender binaries are articulated as norms, further threatening cross-gender dances like Lengger Lanang and the communities that perform them. A prominent Indonesian film maker, Garin Nugroho, directed a film, Kucumbu Tubuh Indahku (Memories of My Body) in 2018 which was inspired by Rianto’s life story as a lengger dancer. In the film, the central character, a young male dancer, comes to terms with the world around him and his own sexuality. Rianto narrates and is featured throughout the film. Kucumbu Tubuh Indahku has received both praise and criticism, the latter mainly from Indonesians for its exploration of LGBTQ topics, triggering the film to be banned in several major cities in the nation. The film has received numerous nominations and awards from film festivals around the globe and was Indonesia’s entry for Best Foreign Language category at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020.
PERFORMERS
Emory Javanese Gamelan Ensemble Paksi Kencana comprises students from Music 207 (Cultures and Arts of Indonesia), Music 301 (The Emory Gamelan Ensemble), faculty, and community gamelan members from Emory campus and beyond.
HALLE BEREKET
ELENA MADELINE BIEN
NIKEESE DANIEL
CLOVER ROSA DEMERRITT
APRIL-SOFIA FOWLER
NEIL FRIED
RETTY HANDAYANI
SOJU HOKARI
DORIAN HUANG
ANITA HOFFMAN
SAAREEN JUNAID
NOAH KANN
CAT KERR
SEBASTIAN KOU
RACHEL LEE
TAEKYU LEE
PATRICIA LIEHR
JOHN LIN
BROOKE LIU
YAJIE MA
KORTE MAKI
SARAH MYERS
JULIA NAGEL
MALHAAR NAIR
DELIA SAVIN
ZOE STEPHENS
MILES STRAW
JACK TSAI
ROBERT TAUXE
GRIFFIN TREJO NOBLE
NAT TREJO NOBLE
MUFDIL TUHRI
JACK WOOD
VIVIAN ZHAO
MAHO ISHIGURO, Department of Music
SCOTT KUGLE, Department of Middle East and South Asian Studies
PETER SHIRTS, Emory Libraries: Music & Media
Directed by DARSONO HADIRAHARJO Department of Music
Today’s concert is blessed with the presence of our guest musicians:
ANNE STEBINGER, Co-Director of the Gamelan Kusuma Laras, NYC
JON REA, Co-Director of the Gamelan Kusuma Laras, NYC
ALEX YOFFE, Director of the Friends of Gamelan, Chicago
PROGRAM
Overture: Ketawang Gendhing Alas Padhang Kethuk Loro Kerep Minggah Ladrang Kandha Manyura Laras Slendro Pathet Manyura
This suite is one of the classical pieces of the Surakarta court repertoire. Alas Padhang refers to an open clearing in the middle of a thick forest, while Kandha Manyura is the call of a peacock. Both of these images symbolize the first rays of the rising sun.
Opening words by Maho A. Ishiguro and Darsono
Gangsaran Ladrang Semingin Laras Slendro Pathet Nem
Gangsaran is a lively piece often played at the beginning of events to wish for a smooth performance. The piece proceeds seamlessly into Ladrang Seminging, a well known composition from Yogyakarta, a court city and cultural center in Java. The drummer uses a particularly dramatic style of Yogyanese drum patterns to lead the ensemble of more than twenty members.
Ketawang Tarupala Laras Slendro Pathet Manyura
Originating in the Mangkunegaran Palace, the minor royal household of Surakarta, Central Java, Ketawang Tarupala is one of the nine sendhon langen swara , a group of compositions created by Mangkunegaran IV (1811-1881) that uses plants, fruits and flowers as the main poetic motifs. Ketawang Tarupala is one of the earliest pieces in the classical Javanese gamelan repertoire to feature the gerongan , a choir of male vocalists.
Gendhing Majemuk Kebar Kethuk Loro Kerep Minggah sekawan kalajengagen Ladrang Gonjing Miring Laras Slendro Pathet Nem
In Wayang Kulit, Javanese shadow puppet theater, Majemuk is frequently played to accompany a scene in which a king falls in love. Today’s performance of this piece includes a fast paced section, the kebar, arranged by Nartosabdho who was a well known 20th century Javanese composer known for developing and integrating his own style into traditional Javanese gamelan repertoire. The piece is followed by ladrang Gonjing Miring, a popular instrumental piece which contains a gobyokan: a lively section in which the frequent use of kenong and kempul increases the textural density of the whole.
Tari Klana Topeng (Mask Dance of King Klana)
This dance depicts King Klana Sewandana from the East Javanese Legend of Panji , a powerful antagonist who attempts to abduct a princess. His character, like others of his archetype in Javanese narratives, is feverish and temperamental. The dancer
PROGRAM
depicting his infatuation with movements that demonstrate strength, beauty, and elegance. Tari Klana Topeng is one of the most challenging solo dance pieces utilizing putra gagah , the strong and masculine movement style in the Javanese court dance vocabulary.
Ketawang Mijil Dhempel Laras Slendro Pathet Sanga
This is an excerpt from Srimpi Dhempel , an elegant female dance from the classical Javanese court repertory. Ketawang Mijil Dhempel , utilizes bedhayan , a style of vocal parts sung by both male and female in unison and characterized by particularly long melodic lines with smooth contours. The audience will also notice a constant rhythmic pattern throughout the piece, played by a pair of kemanak , an instrument that accompanies sacred dances in the royal households, creating an extraordinary atmosphere.
Gendhing Andhadha Kethuk Loro Kerep Minggah Ladrang Panunggal Laras Slendro Pathet Manyura
A new compositional suite in the classical style by Darsono Hadiraharjo, the director of the Emory Javanese Gamelan Ensemble and his late father, Saguh Hadi Carito. The Javanese term Andhadha refers to the pitch which closes each cadence in the piece. Panunggal , another Javanese term, derives from tunggal , meaning “unity.” The suite is characterized by Nartosabdo’s lively style, as the composer, Saguh Hadi Carito, worked closely with Nartosabdo in Javanese shadow puppet theater performances for much of the mid-20th century.
Lengger Lanang: Eling-Eling Banyumasan (Lengger Lanang Dance)
Lengger Lanang is traditionally accompanied by a group of xylophones made of bamboo. For today’s performance, we have arranged the popular lancaran Eling-Eling Banyumas laras slendro pathet manyura for Central Javanese gamelan instruments. Following the dancer’s movements and moods, the drummer of the ensemble dynamically and playfully fluctuates the tempi throughout the piece, which is a particular challenge for the rest of the ensemble. If Rianto passes you the dance scarf, please accept his invitation to dance on stage with him!
Ladrang Sigramangsah Laras Slendro Pathet Manyura
Ladrang Sigramangsah is a piece from the city of Yogyakarta, characterized by a loud and majestic style of playing. Sigra means “quick” and mangsah means “exit”: with this piece we bring the concert to a swift end and thank you for sharing your evening with us.
ON JAVANESE GAMELAN
The term gamelan refers to musical ensembles from the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Bali in the Republic of Indonesia, and by extension to the music that is played on them. Javanese gamelan primarily consists of bronze percussion instruments –gongs and gong-chimes of various size, suspended either vertically or horizontally, as well as different types of metallophones. The gamelan ensemble also includes suling (bamboo flutes), gambang (a wooden xylophone), rebab (a string instrument), and kendhang (drums).
Javanese gamelan normally includes two sets of instruments in each of the two tuning systems, laras pelog (7 notes per octave) and laras slendro (5 notes per octave). Within each tuning system, there are three modes in which gamelan pieces are written. Tonight’s performance uses the slendro set.
The ensemble comprises three groups of instruments: the framework instruments, balungan instruments, and elaboration instruments. The balungan instruments (the family of saron and slenthem) play the core melody. The elaboration instruments ( gender, suling, gambang, rebab, and bonang) are played semi-improvisatory, elaborating the core melody. The framework instruments ( gong, kempul, kenong, kethuk, and kempyang) mark particular notes, outlining the form of the pieces. A set of drums (kendhang) controls the tempo of the whole ensemble.
Source: Traditional Music in Modern Java: Gamelan in a Changing Society
by Judith Becker, 1981, the University of Hawaii Press
MUSIC AT EMORY
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