Class Year

2017

Document Type

Audio

Publication Date

Summer 2016

Department 1

Conservatory of Music

Abstract

At the start of our trip in Bali, Indonesia I had set out to research women’s gamelan. All-women’s gamelan is still a fairly new concept, only popularized within the last 2-3 decades. From my white, Western feminist perspective, I had assumed the reason more women did not participate in gamelan had to do with empowerment. As we attended the women’s gamelan competition at the Bali Arts Festival I wondered if they wanted more out of their gamelan playing. Although the sight of an all-women’s gamelan is no longer out of the ordinary, they serve strictly entertainment and secular purposes as opposed to men’s gamelan, which also holds sacred purposes such as their performances at temple ceremonies, tooth filings, and cremations. It has been stated, however, by dancer and scholar I Wayan Dibia that in spite of context performers still feel they are performing for a “divine audience” (Gold, 2005, p. 18). Knowing Bali to be a patriarchal society I initially assumed structural and institutional practices were the only forces working to sustain the push for women to pursue dance rather than gamelan. While this still may be true, the women I had the privilege of working with made it sound like there was more to it.

Streaming Media

Comments

This piece is part of the Bali Soundscapes collection, which features photographs, audio essays, and written essays by Gettysburg College students who took the Language, Culture, & Immigration in Bali course during the summer of 2013 or 2016. See http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/balisoundscapes/ for more.

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Additional Files

Bali NPR Transcript.pdf (14 kB)
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