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Kerensa Consciousness cont....

Interlace/Dissolution

Cross Cultural Performance and Art in Ubud.
Report by Kerensa Johnston

Eugenio Barba talks about dramaturgy. He says that there are many different types - the dramaturgy of the performance, of the performers, of the audience. It is in creating a cross culture performance that the different dramaturgies of performance became clear.

In October 1999, I was asked to create a dance for the closing of an artist's exhibition at the Seniwati Gallery for Women in Ubud. The exhibition was of accomplished Australian artist Victoria Cattorini and her installation Interlace. The installation itself was a cross cultural exploration of the influences that have impacted on her life. It was a genuine cross cultural exploration rather than simply being a "lifting" or stealing of ideas from the Balinese landscape but a direct response dealt with sensitivity. The exhibition also reflected the subtle ways in which that she has seen around her has entered into her subconscious. The exhibition featured waves of kebaya lace in shades of yellow and reds draped from the ceiling. On the floor were three very beautiful offerings ( which someone pointed out were possibly for the lower gods Bhataro - which as spectators, we are not sure whether this was deliberate choice made by the artist or in naiveté).

Behind this was an oval shape of hydrangeas - beautiful blue flowers and a string of red flowers in the far corner and white rice patterns in the style of Indian Hindu flower patterns like those found in wedding ceremonies in Rajastan, India. The final part of Interlace was shades of the lace pattern on the ground in pencil sharpenings. Whilst not a mandala in a traditional sense of the word, the positioning of the colors, was done in a way that fitted well with Hindu mandalas. The exhibition was in the Seniwati Showspace which is a long and narrow white tiled space in Ubud.

Target Audience

Often artists exhibit works and their target audience ( although often subconsciously) is mainly the expatriate community of Bali or those Indonesians that move easily between the several worlds that exist here in Bali. Possibly this has a lot to do with the finances of selling art - it is expatriates and those that mix between two worlds that are more likely to have the money to buy artworks and secondly artworks that receive an interest from those with contacts outside of Bali of course have a chance of becoming known as an artists in the big wide world.. Again economics.

For Victoria's exhibition the situation was different - it was an installation - therefor nothing could be sold of the exhibition other than the idea maybe to be to be presented again somewhere else and the postcards of Victoria's previous exhibition. She also wanted to share her work with the Balinese community from whom many of the ideas came. In opening her exhibition she carefully planned and discussed with staff members and friends which time would suit the Balinese community to have the opening.

It was decided 11 am on a Sunday morning - certainly not the most glamorous time to be holding an exhibition opening by Western standards but the most convenient time for the Balinese community - easy transport by bemo, possibly a chance to drop in on the way from the market. If the opening had been held at night there would have been few Balinese attending especially women due to home responsibilities and lack of transport.

When discussions were first opened regarding a performance, Victoria's main concern was that she didn't want it to be an expatriate performance at an expatriate exhibition. I agreed with her one hundred percent. As a foreigner living in Bali, I have often found arts events divided. There are the traditional performances that tourists and Balinese attend and then there are the events of literature and art attended by expatriates in Bali and Indonesians who have little to do with the traditional way of life. Talking about 'a traditional way of life' is difficult also because the point is that cultural authenticity doesn't stop because someone chooses to live one way or another.

Still I wanted to create a performance which bridged the gap between these two worlds - a performance where I could invite friends from a village background and not worry about them feeling uncomfortable in a foreign atmosphere or simply being bored to death by not having enough elements of Balinese dance/ theater, and a performance that was interesting to the expatriate and inter-cultural community that live in and around Ubud.

On a personal level, I had had experience here in Bali as a traditional dancer, working with musicians and teachers on traditional dances, and yet had never experienced working with traditional musicians and dancers on a project whose concept existed outside of tradition. We were not dancing in a temple, nor in a hotel but in a gallery space for women which by all standards is a western concept. I wanted to both experience working with people who are my peers in Balinese performing arts and also share with them a part of my own dance and art experience. Sharing with the Balinese community aspects of your own cultural experience, is very shaky territory to go on - you run the risk of being laughed at, ridiculed and or offending and possibly worse than all of these put together, having absolute disinterest which as a performer can be an extremely crushing experience.

Influences In Balinese Culture

The myth of Balinese culture is built on the idea of it being the strong culture and the pure culture despite historically having elements of others culture absorbed into it - elements of Chinese opera are reflected in the costume and make-up design in traditional Arja (the folk opera of Bali) and Sanur Baris Cina (a martial arts drill) certainly seems to depict the Chinese immigrant. The religion itself is a blend of traditional animism (dating form the original people of Bali - the Bali Aga), Buddhism and Hinduism from India to create the Hindu Dharma religion.

Gambuh - the oldest style of Balinese dance theater that is still performed today, has its roots in the Mojopahit Kingdom which is the Hindu kingdom that came from Java and colonized Bali as Islam began to spread through Java and other parts of Indonesia. Traditional double-sided ikat came originally from the Eastern State of Orissa in India, with some villagers in Tengenan claiming to be direct descendants from the Kingdom of Kalinga.

Even as late as the 1930's elements of Balinese cultural that were dying a natural death have been restored due to the interest of outsiders. The rare and beautiful Semar Pegulingan was on its way out - disregarded as an art form - the instruments in Teges unplayable until Colin Mcphee came to provide support and interest in Semar Pegulingan - The Gamelan of the Gods. Colin had the instruments rebuilt and until this day Teges is more famous than ever for this beautiful orchestra. On another level, the dance and art school - Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia (STSI) has in some cases had both negative and positive effects. An arts school or university is another Western concept considering that students would have traditionally learnt on a one-to-one basis with a teacher or through experience participating in the local Banjar. The positive effect of an institution like this has been a revived interest in older art forms such as Gambuh, amongst young people. Yet on another more negative note they have created a sameness in the regional variations of different dances all over the island. So you can see that what is traditional has many influences which are not traditional despite what tourist literature would like you to believe.

The Process

For several weeks, a concept for a dance was discussed with Victoria. At this stage several groups of gamelan were rehearsing at Yayasan Polosseni where I was staying - there had been Semar Pegulingan rehearsals, Arja rehearsals and rehearsals of many smaller groups such as Gender Wayang, Joged, Tingklik, Gamelan Arja and Gamelan Guntangan. A larger group would have been impossible to fit into the space and impossible to fit into the budget seeing that there was none. I tended to shy away from the idea of using an orchestra which included genders (bronze metalophones) because I automatically felt like using only Balinese dance movements. I wanted to use a combination of Indian dance and Balinese dance. The afternoon that Gamelan Guntangan played, I felt that I could find rhythmic patterns with which I could slap my feet Indian style. I also noticed that the music itself was extremely interesting to the staff at the Yayasan - more so than any of the other styles of music which had been rehearsing there .

The Gamelan Guntangan consists of three suling (flutes), ceng ceng (symbols), two drums, bamboo guntangan( time keeping instrument/ bossed gong) and an ancient gong. For the purpose of this performance we limited the group to one suling and one drum. The ensemble often accompanies Arja - the folk opera of Bali. Yet even though it often accompanied the very popular Arja, I came across those who were not familiar with this style of music at all.

Ideas still going around in my head, I began to visualize the layout as being the world. The circle of red flowers being Bali, the hydrangeas being the world where as foreigners we can make our circle full with many experiences. I began to see that one world would be mine where I look as a tourist through the draped fabric to the other which would be the Balinese dancer's and our movements would reflect some of the similarities in our lives even though our point of starting is far apart.

To work through an idea like this, I felt I needed to work with a friend, someone that was familiar enough with me to understand the way in which I communicate in Indonesian. My language skills are not strong and often I find it is people with whom I have a close feeling that understand my use of language and expression in Indonesian. I needed someone who had an open mind to concepts that existed outside of Bali and who was comfortable enough to communicate and discuss ideas with me. If I had worked with someone such as my teacher, I would have felt in a position that everything would have to be done the way he says.

If I had worked with a professional dancer and paid them I was afraid that maybe they would only be fulfilling a function rather than shaping the performance through dialogue which is something that I am afraid happens in many of the larger and funded "cross cultural productions". Names of dancers and friends flowed through my mind - many of the female ones were brilliant, yet despite this I suspected that maybe they would be limited culturally in the way in which they would participate.

Over the months, I had developed a friendship with the pembantu (household help) of the household I had been staying in. Her name is Ni Ketut Sukadani. She is a well educated and strong woman who had danced within her own village up until the age of 19 years. At the age of 25 she hadn't danced for six years. She is a young Balinese woman who has resolved to live her life independently and who looks on many situations with a certain amount of maturity - she never gets swayed by gossip, never looks down her nose or up to people who do different work - she simply judges people on the merits of their own worth rather than their position on society. And she has an incredible interest in philosophy and world religions. She herself is a devout Hindu yet within herself questions some of the values and examples the religious leaders of her society give.

I had decided that Ketut was someone I wanted to work with, I knew she would tell me straight away whether an idea or a movement was stupid and I knew that she would come up with many ideas herself.

Over the weeks, we discussed themes over cooking and at times workshopped ideas using Western improvisation techniques. Yet the time came when a friend of mine pointed out the dangers of putting Ketut in an atmosphere such as a professional gallery and performance space and running the risk of being seen dancing by people of her own village. He didn't believe that she was aware of the risks - people might laugh, she might freeze and freak out on stage, or she might be so embarrassed by the venture that she would never return to work again. While all these points were valid, I believed enough in Ketut's intelligence to think that she may have thought these things through. Still I was told that I had been irresponsible in choosing Ketut to work with - compromising my own work and the self confidence of a " simple" village girl.

So I went to her and explained the worst case scenario that we as performers could experience - people could hate what we are doing and some may even boo. I asked her whether she still want to do the show. After initially thinking that I was trying to subtly push her out of the show she replied, "What is important is that we try. "

Mid-rehearsal period Victoria brought along a Balinese visual artist, whom she said was a dancer as well, and would like to join the performance. I immediately thought - wonderful, the more the better and figured that if there were any problems with Ketut as a dancer then Murni might be able to cover her. I agreed with Murni joining the performance immediately.

When she arrived, she didn't seem Balinese at all. She spoke English with an Italian accent (due to having an Italian boyfriend) and though polite with the Balinese around her it seemed to be in a way that I had never seen before. Points of contact were now happening on many different levels - a Balinese girl who had lost touch with her traditional culture and who had experienced living overseas, an Australian who had absorbed aspects of traditional culture, a Balinese, who though educated had never been outside Bali and who was very much in touch with tradition.

Murni seemed nervous about doing improvised dance and contemporary "Balinese" movement. She really wanted to do Baris (the warrior dance) to a cassette. I said no, to the cassette and proceeded to try and find a solution to adding Baris. Victoria came up with the solution of having the Baris dancer splitting Ketut and myself as we are about to meet from our different worlds. All seemed to like this idea.

It seemed to represent the differences in culture which make it difficult for people to meet and it also seemed to represent the role the media was playing regarding East- West relations during the election and the Timor issue. It seemed representative of the way men within Balinese culture always seemed to be at the forefront of relationships with outsiders and yet despite all of this, women can still meet and share many stories. On so many levels having the Baris split us apart seemed to work.

So we began to move through the dance and story. Ketut and I were already working extremely well together. Murni got up to do Baris. It was true, she wasn't like an average Balinese woman. As a child she hadn't studied dance and at the age of 35 had learnt Pendet. She had only been learning Baris for two weeks. Her positioning, sharpness and focus were all lacking. Her knees were turned in rather than out. I didn't know what to do and it was a situation that I had never conceived of happening here in Bali, that is, someone who is so new to dance, putting themselves forward to perform dance in public. Secondly, she was Victoria's close friend here and she wanted her to be involved in it, thirdly I had agreed that Baris would now be a part of the performance and was attached to the idea.

Sadra one of the young musicians based at the Yayasan tried to control his laughter. I tried to edge myself in to a point where I felt comfortable to make corrections to Murni's movement. It seemed an ironic twist , a white girl teaching and training a Balinese girl for a performance. Another problem that we came up against was that Murni had rarely seen a live performance of Baris, so she wasn't familiar with the different sounds of the gamelan one can hear, nor the melody, and secondly not familiar with the fact that she as the dancer directs the musicians. When you dance to a tape, the tape directs the way you move and the timing but with live music in Bali the dancer directs the music. Within the set movement vocabulary there is incredible freedom.

At some point, Sadra was joined by Pak Surama, the drummer of the group. We seemed to have an unspoken communication that somehow we had to give her the confidence to move correctly and do our best to bring her standard up. Whilst I corrected body positioning - raising arms, opening the legs, deepening her plea, Sadra and Surama worked with Murni on when to move and on giving signals to the orchestra. They told her how to follow the drum and the gong and that just prior to a gong she should give the signal for the angsel (action). Surama's care and patience with Murni stayed throughout the whole process.

I had several practices with Murni alone, often just practicing walking in circles to the beat. I even took her up to see my teacher Pak Tutur who gave her several corrections creating a stronger focus with her eyes and a more masculine stance.

The first night of rehearsal happened with a hodge podge of members from the Yayasan. I discussed the ideas with the group and tried some rhythms. They played several songs as well as Batel which is a piece of music that is used in aggressive scenes or anger. In theory I had figured that all my rhythms which are in an ektali - a simple four beat pattern - could just be worked around the guntangan (the time keeping instrument), yet the intricacies of Balinese drum and the percussive use of the ceng ceng (symbols) made this incredibly difficult. The founder of the Yayasan, Doug Myers, discussed with me some of the principals of Gamelan Guntangan and Balinese music. Gamelan Guntangan is only this form of gamelan provided it has the sulings, take them away and it becomes gamelan Batel.

The group needed the sulings in order to play the melody. I had been hoping that maybe they could sing the melody in their head and play the drum patterns but like Doug said, no one would know which part of the melody they were up to.

The sulings would give the piece its color and lyricism. My only problem was that if they played the music for a traditional Balinese dance piece and I danced Indian dance, then the audience would question why I didn't do a dance that was meant to go with that music. I wanted the audience to judge it on its own merits and faults rather than compare it to something that should have been done traditionally. The musicians seemed to understand this, yet as musicians had a new challenge to face, following movement and dance that they had never seen before.

I took the tape away and listened to it. Purely by accident, I had started choreographing to a piece of music called Bapang Selisir which I thought was the gamelan Batel. I was wrong. The way in which the piece moved musically reminded me very much of Basant Pallavi from the Odissi repertoire. Now despite the differences in scale between Indian and Balinese music, I have seen Indian musicians find similarities in Indian Ragas to Balinese melodies. What I did understand for the first time ever was how, certain musical sounds suit certain types of movements. Although Sadra the ceng ceng player was very clever at following my steps and adding percussion to my feet, the ceng ceng sounds and looks most affective when it is accompanying the start of the angsel or a shimmer of the shoulders. It seems to reflect the intensity and tautness of a Balinese dance position as if charting the movement of each and every nerve ending that spreads throughout the body and ends in the tips of the fingers and the toes. It also became clear to me that the elegance and grace of Odissi was so well suited to the music of Odissi and the drum patterns of that music and that somewhere in the course of history, these two dance styles weren't created haphazardly but over a period of time created to suit the music that was playing.

Our second rehearsal began as a group and I had decided to introduce a Western singer Kerry Pendergrast into the performance, but have her singing the Indian drum patterns that would be accompanying my feet. Earlier on in the piece she would also sing a kind of shadow of the final melody that Ketut and I would be dancing to. In Balinese music there is always the Pokok (the base melody) and around it, many illustrations. Kerry would be singing the pokok and when I tired to describe and explain what she was doing, I described her as being the calung or jegogan (insturments in Gamelan gong kebyar that play the base melodies) of the group and Pak Kiring the suling player as the gangsa. (bronze metalophones that play the more elaborate meleodies).

Pak Kiring played the basic melody with nothing extra several times over for her to understand. He then stopped playing and apologized that he had never been to India, which made me realize that I should slow down in my explanation rather than be embarrassed that we were taking so long. The five musicians from Sekehe Darma Jati are professional musicians (along with being professional farmers and whatever else) and once committed to a performance will rehearse and rehearse to get it right. If they didn't want to be in the performance they wouldn't be there - they just simply wouldn't turn up to rehearsal or say that a ceremony was on the day of the performance. This rehearsal went better than the others with Sadra and Surama more familiar with my dance style and following my movements.

It is amazing to dance within a culture where the musicians from an early age are taught to listen with their ears to the sounds around them and watch with their eyes the dancer. I have danced with many different types of live groups in Australia and never have I experienced in such a short time a group of musicians with an ability to understand movement and a strong sense of musical skill which can make that movement come alive. I have never had a group of musicians follow so closely allowing a definite freedom in the way I danced. This has a lot do with the compli in gamelan or the guntangan in this case which keeps the group together. Provided I remain with the compli or make it clear to the compli and drum when to speed up then musically it should stay together. The compli is the centre and pace of the music. All other instruments work around it and the drum is like the conductor of the group. Pak Surama and Sadra described some of the difficulties that they had in following my dance.

They said in Balinese dance and theater, the drummer takes his cue from the position of the dancer's feet, the expression in his eyes and those of the hands. Often a deep breath and raising up and down of the torso and arms signifies to the drummer the start of the angsel (the action) yet for Indian dance the signals to the drummers were quite different and they had to learn how to read them.

As a dancer familiar with Balinese music, I tried to apply the same rules of changing the rhythm and pace on the 6th beat prior to the gong on the 8th which poses its own problem in Indian dance which tends to be one continuous flow of movement with rhythms and timing changing on a single note and gesture. After the signal has been given on the 6th beat through to the gong (the 8th), the following cycle will have the angsel and will slow down again on the 6th beat.

The musicians also had problems working with Murni who, although dancing the most traditional piece in the show, was not very good at giving strong signals. Someone told me once that the sign of a truly good flamenco guitarist was when he could make a terrible dancer look brilliant by being able to follow so closely. Surama watched both my dance and Murni's dance with an intensity that I had never seen. The only time he relaxed was when Ketut danced who seemed to have such a natural sense of rhythm, timing and improvisation skills. The group all commented on how good she was at working with the music and finding movement that suited it. She gave good clear signals for the angsel. Later I was to learn that her village of Mengwi has some very good Joged dancers which is possibly the most improvised style of dance in Bali. Each dancer has their own style. Possibly growing up with this around her, contributed to her ability to dance and understand music.

During this time, her boss had been making comments that she would run off and become a dancer. Ketut had the direct impression that he didn't want her to dance. I told her if she felt that dancing with me was putting too much pressure on her working relationship she could pull out if she wanted to. She said no, she felt it was important to do this simply to see if she had the self confidence to do it. She knew people would question the role of the pembantu dancing but didn't care. To be continued.....