Suchergebnisse

One of the most remarkable features of the past twenty years of scholarship on the Southeast Asian performing arts has been the sparking off of ideas between Southeast Asian-born scholars, whether trained in Southeast Asian universities or overseas, and Western scholars of the Southeast arts who live in North America, Australia, Europe, Japan and elsewhere. In colonial Indonesia (until 1945) and Malaysia (until 1957), research agendas of Dutch and British scholars respectively had complied with the social, economic and political priorities of the colonial powers and associated local court-centred artistic interests, though not always consciously. In Thailand, which was the only country in the region not to be colonized by a European power, Thai scholars had been actively researching their own court performing arts in the late colonial era but were nevertheless influenced by the colonial ethos of the region. In the past twenty years or so, the developing dialogue and contradictions between Southeast Asian and foreign scholars, each with their own partly distinctive assumptions and methodologies based on the priorities of their respective traditions and governments, have resulted in a healthy divergence, convergence, and cross-fertilization of ideas.

The province of Maluku, otherwise known as the Moluccas, is divided into three main regions: the predominantly Muslim north, the mainly Christian central area, and the predominantly Christian southeast (see Map 1). The central region contains the "mother island" (nasa ina) of Seram which Maluku people believe to be the original source of Maluku culture. In some relatively isolated parts of this large island the original inhabitants such as the Nuaulu and the Huaulu ethnic groups (known in colonial times as the Alifuru people) still practise their ancestral rituals including music and dance.

Only recently has it become possible to attempt to reconstruct a history of Javanese music in the nineteenth century. The relevant primary and secondary sources, including Javanese poems and treatises, colonial writings and scattered references in various historical tracts are only now beginning to emerge from cold storage to be published, translated, and made more widely available. This article is a preliminary attempt to draw together from them an overview of Javanese music in the nineteenth century, adopting a musicological, cultural and historical approach which is based partly on my own fieldwork over the past twenty years. An understanding of nineteenth century musical developments is clearly important not only in its own right but also as a means of facilitating our comprehension of the contemporary artistic scene.

Only recently has it become possible to attempt to reconstruct a history of Javanese music in the 19th century. The relevant primary and secondary sources, including Javanese poems and treatises, colonial writings and scattered references in various historical tracts are only now beginning to emerge from cold storage to be published, translated, and made more widely available. The article is a preliminary attempt to draw together from them an overview of Javanese music in the 19th century, adopting a musicological, cultural and historical approach. (DÜI-Sen)

From the 1960s, both the Gayo minority in the highlands of Aceh and the Acehnese majority living in the coastal plains have achieved increased national and international exposure of their traditional song-dances, some of which are performed in the " standing" position and others in the " sitting" position. This article focuses on the Gayo saman and the Acehnese ratôh duek (lit. " sitting chattering") song-dances, both of which are performed in the sitting (actually kneeling) position. From ca the 1980s they were transplanted into the Medan, Jakarta and Yogyakarta diasporas. While ratôh duek was widely performed and taught in simplified form to thousands of Indonesian school children, saman has remained an exclusively Gayo traditional form, and unlike the Acehnese, its community has consistently rejected any substantial modification of the genre for mass teaching and performance purposes. In 2011, UNESCO formally recognised the Gayo Lues style of saman as an Endangered Item of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which increased its international prominence and provided some funding for its preservation. However this recognition served to intensify existing tensions between the Gayo and the Acehnese at home and especially in the diasporas. To this day, the government, the media and the general population often mistakenly refer to the Acehnese genre ratôh duek by the Gayo name of saman, despite its very different history and style. This is resented by the Gayo, who see the practice as an appropriation that increases their perception of being treated as second-class citizens in their own homeland as well as in their diaspora communities. ratôh duek (lit. " sitting chattering") song-dances, both of which are performed in the sitting (actually kneeling) position. From ca the 1980s they were transplanted into the Medan, Jakarta and Yogyakarta diasporas. While ratôh duek was widely performed and taught in simplified form to thousands of Indonesian school children, saman has remained an exclusively Gayo traditional form, and unlike the Acehnese, its community has consistently rejected any substantial modification of the genre for mass teaching and performance purposes. In 2011, UNESCO formally recognised the Gayo Lues style of saman as an Endangered Item of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which increased its international prominence and provided some funding for its preservation. However this recognition served to intensify existing tensions between the Gayo and the Acehnese at home and especially in the diasporas. To this day, the government, the media and the general population often mistakenly refer to the Acehnese genre ratôh duek by the Gayo name of saman, despite its very different history and style. This is resented by the Gayo, who see the practice as an appropriation that increases their perception of being treated as second-class citizens in their own homeland as well as in their diaspora communities.