All-night shadow puppets and the magic of the gamelan
Posted on 15 March 2012
Starting on 26 April, the Gathering at the University’s Roger Kirk Centre coincides with the 30th anniversary of Gamelan Sekar Petak’s arrival in York, and the start of three decades of gamelan teaching in the UK. It was the first ever full Javanese gamelan in a British institution.
Wayang Lokananta was commissioned for this event, with story and puppetry by dhalang (puppeteer) Professor Matthew Isaac Cohen and music by gamelan composers from around the UK. Weaving together myth, legend and folktales about music from the island of Java with the modern story of gamelan in Britain, the play will bring together over 100 British gamelan musicians from fifteen ensembles across England, Scotland and Wales.
The performance will offer a rare opportunity to experience wayang as it is performed in Indonesia: free to the public, finishing shortly before dawn, held in a relaxed, informal atmosphere with food and drink available throughout. The eight hour show will require a marathon performance from Matthew Cohen, who will continue through the night with only one break.
York was the first university in the UK to have a Javanese gamelan, and many of today’s top British performers had their first experience of playing Indonesian music here
Ginevra House
Wayang Lokananta takes place during a four-day symposium, supported by the Arts Council, aimed at gamelan performers, composers, academics, teachers and the wider community of ethnomusicologists. Delegates will be joined by Guest of Honour, Bapak Aloysius Suwardi, a highly respected composer, performer, instrument maker and academic from Java, who was a prominent figure in the rise of the Indonesian avant-garde movement in the 1980s.
One of the organisers, Ginevra House, said: “York was the first university in the UK to have a Javanese gamelan, and many of today’s top British performers had their first experience of playing Indonesian music here. To celebrate this anniversary, we wanted to bring the British – and indeed the international – gamelan community together, to share ideas and best practice, to learn together and, especially, to perform together.”
There is a thriving group of around 15-20 gamelan performers in the York area, mostly music students and ex-students who meet regularly to play new compositions and traditional music.
Notes to editors:
- Images of the gamelan are available to download here: www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2012/events/gamelan/gallery
- More information on the conference at www.york.ac.uk/music/conferences/gathering-of-the-gamelans/
- Box office for reserving tickets for Wayang Lokananta: www.york.ac.uk/concerts/programme/lokananta/
- The symposium is supported by the Arts Council, the Indonesian Embassy, the Leche Trust, Bright White Ltd, the Humanities Research Centre and the University of York Annual Fund.
- More information on the University of York’s Department of Music at www.york.ac.uk/music/
- A gamelan is an ensemble of tuned bronze percussion and other instruments, typically from Indonesia.
- The University of York’s Gamelan Sekar Petak is of the type found in Java. Its name means White Rose.
- A wayang is a general term for a puppet play. Shadow puppetry is known specifically as wayang kulit.
- Dhalang means puppeteer.
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