Voices in Bali: Energies and Perceptions in Vocal Music and Dance Theater
218
Voices in Bali: Energies and Perceptions in Vocal Music and Dance Theater
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819573285 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Wesleyan University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/20/2012 |
| Series: | Music / Culture |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 218 |
| File size: | 129 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
<P>EDWARD HERBST is an ethnomusicologist on the board of directors of Arbiter Records and former assistant editor of Ethnomusicology. JUDITH BECKER is a professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan. RENÉ T. A. LYSLOFF is an associate professor of music at the University of California, Riverside.</P>
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Désa kala patra place-time-context
* * *
Diverse are the voices, energies, and perceptions, within and relating to performance, that Balinese people have shared with me. And, to be sure, ever more varied, even contradictory, are those which I have not experienced or witnessed. This book will suggest various ways of approaching the interconnectedness of spirit and acoustics, poetry in song, song in dance, dance in character, characters in myth/history, and myth/history in locale, ecology, and religion. A fluid sense of orientation and focus reflects my experience with many Balinese artists, whose ever-contextual mode of discourse and activity continually refers to the concept of désa kala patra 'place-time-context'. While these writings are "about" voices, energies, and perceptions (bayu sabda idep), they are also "about," as much as they are shaped by, this indigenous mode of discourse itself.
The concept of désa kala patra is essential to Balinese artists and is discussed in a philosophical way or in a very direct and practical manner just before beginning a performance. It is a way of putting human activity into the context of the world and nature; a way of interacting with forces greater than the human. Désa kala patra gives a "sense of place" on both a social and a metaphysical level. Basically, if something is not in keeping with désa kala patra, it is out of context, either socially, spiritually, or ecologically. Désa kala patra is where things come from, where meaning and life-forces are manifested. It is also applied to ethics and civil behavior, such as the use of everyday language to reflect status.
In the Balinese language, the composite meaning of the phrase implies more than the sum of its parts. When the phrase is disassembled, the meanings of each word are myriad, depending, always, upon the désa kala patra of the discussion and interpretation at hand. The whole phrase could well be translated into English as "context," and we might be more accurate ascribing the definition "circumstance" or "situation" to patra. Of the many different ways that Balinese apply the phrase, désa can in itself refer to the immediate "place, time, and context" of an event, the sense of an overall organizing structure. In this case, patra would refer to the "activity" or "energy" and kala to a more transcendent aspect of time.
The way many people explain it, désa 'village' refers to locale, the character of a community and land. What kind of genealogical, family descent groups are there? Are there jero, members of the gentry related to the former palaces or members of the Brahmana lineage, traditionally delegated as priests, theologians and literati? Or is the community made up of jaba 'non-gentry', literally, "outsiders," who comprise more than 90 percent of the population?
Similarly, some locales are characterized by their proximity to and connection with one of Bali's thousands of temples, sharing its history, spiritual energy, and connotations. Another aspect of désa 'place' refers to the land and its particular character, the quality of an area's ricefields or other agricultural staple. Or whether it is in a densely populated or forested area, by the mountains, by the sea, or in the hills in between those two extremes. The kaja-kelod axis, referring to north-south, but really toward the mountain as opposed to toward the sea, is a source of spiritual as well as geographical direction and orientation. Pura Besakih, the mother temple worshiped by all of Bali, sits by the side of the great mountain, Gunung Agung. Mountains are thought of as the dwelling place of gods and ancestors, and it is from there that the deities come for periodic visits, occasioning ceremonies and festivals.
The sea is thought of as spiritually dangerous, the source of demons and witchcraft, as well as sickness. So, beachfront villages are considered more vulnerable to black magic and ill health; their ceremonial and artistic activities reflect a need to deal with those forces. Rivers are thought of as potentially dangerous from a spiritual point of view. On the other hand, springs are often sacred spots, and holy springs have been the location of meditation caves through the ages.
The patra 'context' aspect generally refers to the specific activity that needs to be performed, to be done in keeping with specifics of time and place. Particular group activities, ceremonies, and performances vary according to circumstances, need, and availability of resources. And there are many times when nonhuman entities dictate patra's particular necessities.
During an odalan ceremony at the small community temple in Singapadu, someone in trance conveys an unexpected message from the spirit of a barong landung. This pair of sacred barong landung masks have been stored away in the temple for many years. The spirit of one of them speaks through the human medium to say that the barong landung wants to be included again in the temple's ceremonies, and must be performed. So, for the next odalan, two hundred and ten days later, eight-foot high Jero Gedé and Jero Luh are brought out to give the odalan some additional sanctity while they tease each other with sexual humor and silly songs accompanied by the gambelan, in the context of a drama including many other characters, serious and comic.
In the course of these writings, désa kala patra is used as a compass leading us into varied perspectives on voices, energies, and perceptions, within as well as outward from Bali, ranging from the musical to the pedagogical, performative, cultural, ecological, metaphysical, and theoretical.
Music as an activity of an entirely transient nature, experienced in time and space; hearing as an inwardly directed activity, a perception of assimilation, and listening as a process of differentiation, directed outward; a teacher's loaded question, "Where are you coming from?"; each word's resonance and each phrase's sequence of resonances as vibrations transforming from throat to nose, to chest, around the mouth, and so on; musical tunings alternating back and forth, reflecting qualities of attentiveness, reflection, impulsiveness, and spontaneity within the course of a dramatized walk in the "wilds" of nature; poetic lines and melodic phrases, rearranged extemporaneously to fit choreography, mood, and gambelan structure; a topéng mask dance performance commissioned to tell particular family histories; over coffee and cakes, deciding who is to dance each role and basic plot sequence; all the ingredients of artistic process coming together in movement, wind, earth, song, conflict, pleasure, intoxication, and spirit; a historical sense of the past, transcendent time, and the present, focused in the direct encounter with unseen but immediate forces; the very quality that artists and anthropologists have called uniquely Balinese, the great variety from place to place, undergoing change in modern Indonesia; singling out an aspect of creation, such as "the mountain," not to separate it from all else as a symbol but to unify the activity of attention by incorporating other aspects of creation into the quality of 'highness'; phenomena taking on form, while shape is considered as a dynamic quality, in a time-space sense, manifested as neume, gesture, color, etc.; structure (désa) suggesting "a place for something to happen"; both method (note-to-note procedure) and material (the sounds and silences of a composition) as patra, also telling us "where"; and kala 'time' or in another sense, "flow," telling us "how" things happen.
CHAPTER 2Aji nusup "lessons in penetration" the désa kala patra of experience
* * *
A lullaby and its levels of meaning: tembang Pucung (CD selections 1 and 2)
* * *
Bibi anu lamun payu luwas mandyus Antengé tekekang, yatnain ngaba masui tiuk puntul bawang anggon sasikepan
Restless baby, if mother should go bathing, she'll tie a scarf across her breasts bound up within it a piece of masui wood a dull knife and garlic for protection
The underlying, implied meaning of this lullaby has to do with magic and protection from witchcraft. Rivers are a common place for dangerous spirits to congregate. Masui wood, besides being used medicinally, wards off malevolent sorcery. A dull knife also repels harmful spirits as, of course, does garlic.
Another translation gives each phrase a corresponding didactic interpretation, sometimes offered by Ketut Rinda as panasar in his topéng performances.
To stay well and clean in this world, keep what you learn held close to your heart, be careful always to be learning from life-giving sources, for a confused mind, knowledge is all that is needed to live in this world
Bawang 'garlic' is transmuted into ngawang 'knowledge' by means of kirta basa, the panasar topéng's creative and playful practice of etymology-within-performance. In this kind of kirta basa, the implication is often that a closeness of meaning follows a closeness of phonetics. In other contexts, kirta basa is applied in a more formal linguistic sense.
The house is located on the eastern edge of the hamlet, just bordering the wet-ricefields. The door facing west leads into the family compound, a domestic area for a Balinese family comprising three generations. The door facing east looks out onto a wide expanse of terraced hills, the great volcanic mountain Gunung Agung, in the distance. Over a period of months, the fields change from mud into countless ponds of young green plants, and then into a blanket of gold awaiting harvest. It is clear where the Balinese find some solitude away from their closely knit social fabric, and one can observe the fieldwork from this porch, stage by stage as the seasons change.
Just by the house, a little way into the ricefields, is a holy spring, an ancient place of pilgrimages and meditation, with stone carvings dating back to the eleventh century. Between that spring and the house is another spring, where the people of the hamlet bring their ceramic and plastic pails to get drinking water, and where everyone bathes and does the laundry.
There are three sections, separated by stone walls, each containing a couple of stone figures, some of which are heads of supernatural beings out of whose mouths the water flows. One set of water spouts is for females, another for males, and the other section is reserved for ritual needs, very common in the Balinese Agama Tirtha 'religion of holy water'.
This village is situated between the Petanu and Pakrisan rivers, the area in which the great Balinese dynasties of the eleventh to fourteenth centuries flourished. From the higher hills of Tampaksiring to this village of Bedaulu and nearby Péjéng, are a series of ancient shrines, tombs, and meditation caves. The closest has a history thought to go back at least to the sixth century A.D. The demon-king Maya Danawa was jealous of the gods and did not let the people give them offerings. Indra finally subdued the demon, and his blood flowed into the river Petanu. Up until this century, I am told, water from the Petanu could not be used for irrigation because it was still tinged with Maya Danawa's blood.
But once Indra had killed Maya Danawa, he brought him to life again, dividing his soul into male and female twins who would marry and rule the island. This king and queen, located in Péjéng, had twins, as did each succeeding generation, until the seventh. This king chose not to marry his sister, and instead concerned himself with meditation and magical practices. While meditating, it is said, his head would leave his body and soar into the heavens. On one such occasion, his impatient and impulsive minister began to panic when the head did not return as soon as he had expected. So, as he saw a farmer walking toward the market with a pig, the minister, thinking a pig's head was better than none, cut off the head of the animal and placed it on his king's head. The king continued to rule but had himself installed on a high tower, forbidding everyone to cast their eyes on him.
As history tells us, this was the last of the line of Balinese dynasties before the advent of Javanese rule in the fourteenth century. This village bears the name of this king, Dalem Bedaulu, which means "He Who Changed Heads."
After hiking up through the hills to my house in the gambelan-forging village of Tihingan, Klungkung, I indulge myself in a midday nap. When I awake, there is a strange sensation in my head. I boil some water for coffee, figuring that a little caffeine will clear up this hazy mental buzz. But after a cup, I realize that I am not merely experiencing a vibration within my head but a sound coming into my ears. I try to focus my listening, to identify the nature and direction of this sound, but wind up wandering in one direction and then another, out of my hosts' family compound and into the nearby dirt paths. I finally gaze upward and see a flock of pigeons circling overhead. Realizing this to be the source of the sound, I ask around and learn that little brass bells, grondong or gongséng, are commonly fastened to the legs of pigeons, as an aeolian sonic presence. The soundwaves do not travel to the ears of the behearer in any ordinary manner; but are diffused by the fast movement of the birds high up in the air The sound does not issue from any one source or location, and that in combination with the high-pitched quality of the brass bells gives the resonance more of an all-embracing quality of air; or gentle wind, than of sound.
It was many years ago, and Tempo had been living with his teacher for only one week. They would bathe mornings at a waterfall and listen to the sounds water makes. One time, as he was coming back from bathing alone at the spring, his teacher asked, "Where are you coming from?" "The spring," he answered. "What was it like there?" "What do you mean?" His teacher continued, "What are the trees like by the spring? Who else was there? What color was the sky? How is the spring designed? What is it made of?" He was confused and did not know how to answer. His teacher said, "Alright, go home to your own village and think about it until you understand what I am asking you." For a year, he says, he would go to sleep at night wondering what his teacher had been getting at. That was the teacher from whom he later learned the "art of flowering."
Wayan Diya explains buana alit 'microcosmos' as a process of "letting them (qualities) enter into you." Buana agung 'macrocosmos' is "to be able to enter into things." The world, cosmos, and our inner worlds are not places or entities. They are ways.
Activities, contexts, and implications of buana agung and buana alit are diverse; sometimes corporeal, other times psychospiritual, still other times spatial, directional, and so on. Pangider-ider is a system relating various déwa 'deities' with the different cardinal directions and their associated colors and weapons. A common feature of an odalan 'temple festival' is pangider buana 'traveling around-the-world', an activity in which members of the congregation process along the outer perimeter of the walls of a pura 'temple', carrying sacred weapons or objects temporarily inhabited by divine visitors, possibly performing a processional dance with or without gambelan, and singing kidung verses.
As we sit around, gathering momentum to begin the session, her husband and friend offer advice on teaching. She is quiet, however, trying to really understand what it is about Balinese tembang singing that I wish to learn, and how she should begin teaching it.
Singing is an activity always intertwined with some other mode of aesthetic expression: dance, instrumental music, characterization, poetry, storytelling. It is in these contexts that much of its meaning, inspiration, and purpose arises. To read poetry is to sing. In all poetic genres practiced in Bali, the identity of a given poem is comprised not only of characteristic syllabic form, use of vowels, verse shape, and other "linguistic" and "poetic" features, but also of a characteristic melody. Even someone reading alone will be humming the melody of the poem to him or herself, though more quietly, syllabically, and quickly than when singing for others to hear.
To act is to dance and sing. The same word, pragina, denotes both dancer and actor (there is no differentiation, except in terms of specific characters or genres). Masolah is what a pragina does, and that means "to perform" or "to characterize," although in everyday usage, ngigel (from the root "to bend") denotes the activity of dancing. And although some roles are not vocal, any experienced performer is expected to be able to vocalize, in dialogue, stylized speech and song.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Voices in Bali"
by .
Copyright © 1997 Edward Herbst.
Excerpted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
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Table of Contents
<P>Foreword by Judith Becker<BR>Acknowledgments<BR>Introduction<BR>A note on Language and orthography<BR>A note on Musical notation<BR>Dsa kala patra: place-time-context<BR>Aji nusup 'lessons in penetration the desa kala patra of experience<BR>Vocal qualities<BR>Tembang<BR>Masolah: the desa kala patra of spirit<BR>Pansar<BR>Desa kala patra within performance<BR>Perkembangan: spontaneity and the flower of desa kala patra<BR>Kala<BR>Desa kala patra of the arts in contemporary Bali<BR>Intrinsic aesthetics: desa kala patra within performance, continued<BR>Bali-no longer-unplugged: electronic technology, amplification, and the marginalization of presence<BR>Into other interpretive modes<BR>Penetrating what, where, and how<BR>Afterward by Rene T.A. Lysloff</P>What People are Saying About This
“To follow the learning process in music in the depth that Herbst makes available to us is to make a revealing journey into Balinese categories of thought. Music is as intrinsic to culture as language, itself, but it is usually learned somewhat more formally and the process is therefore easier to discern. It is a privilege to follow the author on this voyage of discernment.”
“This compelling and innovative study... offers a deeply informed-and often deeply moving-portrait... successfully confronts an array of complex epistemological and musical challenges.”
"Voices in Bali is a very remarkable book. In my opinion it is the first book written by a Western scholar who has really succeeded to feel and experience from within the magic exaltation of the Balinese artist during the performance of his art (music and dance and theatre)."
“Voices in Bali is a very remarkable book. In my opinion it is the first book written by a Western scholar who has really succeeded to feel and experience from within the magic exaltation of the Balinese artist during the performance of his art (music and dance and theatre).”