Saving Paradise

7-9 September 2007

Saving Paradise was a weekend festival comprising cross-site activities in celebration of, and dedicated to our planet. The weekend focussed on ecology, climate change and our environment, through artistic encounter, exchange and participation. The gamelan programme played a vital role in this festival alongside epic performances of Paco Peña’s Reqiuem for the Earth and the launch of the Cape Farewell Expedition to the Arctic.

Southbank Centre resounded with the chimes of the gamelan with performances by Southbank Gamelan Players, Kampung Reading Gamelan Group and a gamelan troupe all the way from West Cumbria. Notable highlights of the weekend included a Gamelan Symposium and performances of Wayang Kulit - Shadow Puppetry.

 

Symposium: The Role and Development of Gamelan in Europe

Friday 7 September, 10am-5pm, Level 5 Function Room

Chaired by Alec Roth and Rahayu Supanggah - Southbank Centre Artist in Residence supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation - speakers from the UK, Austria and France presented their work in gamelan performance, composition and education:

Matthew Isaac Cohen - Royal Holloway University of London
‘Reflections on Gamelan in Europe from RM Jodjana to the Present’.

Laura Nozlopy - Royal Holloway University of London
‘Dancing out of Bali - John Coast and the Tour of 1952’.

Andy Channing - Lilacita, London
‘Balinese Gamelan and Lilacita at the Bali Arts Festival’.

Gerd Grupe & Rainer Schuetz - University of the Arts (KUG) Graz, Austria
‘Gamelan in Graz and Virtual Gamelan’

Cathy Eastburn - Good Vibrations, London
‘Good Vibrations - Gamelan in Prison Projects’.

Gilles Delabarre - Cité de la Musique, Paris
‘Gamelan and Early Years Training at Cité de la Musique’.

These talks were followed by an open discussion chaired by Alec Roth and Rahayu Supanggah. The Symposium was documented by Sheila Cude of the UK Gamelan Network. For a more detailed synopsis of each talk, please refer to Seleh Notes - The UK Gamelan Magazine, Volume 15 Number 1, December 2007.

www.gamelannetwork.co.uk

 

Film: Opera Jawa

Friday 7 September, 8pm, BFI Southbank

A performance was held in the foyer of the BFI to mark the screening of Opera Jawa - an updating of the Ramayana, directed by Garin Nugroho, with soundtrack by Rahayu Supanggah. Southbank Gamelan Players directed by Supanggah himself, performed ceremonial gamelan music and compositions from the film’s soundtrack. Supanggah then introduced the film and participated in a question and answer session after the screening.

www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/3997

 

Cumbrian Wayang and Keswick Stones Recital - The Musical Stonemason

Saturday 8 September, 5pm, and Sunday 9 September, 12.30pm, Spirit Level, RFH

The Cumbrian Wayang is an exciting community arts project based in West Cumbria and supported by SoundWave, an organisation with a mission to promote ‘transformation through music’ for the people of Cumbria.  The project is a creative collaboration between the musicians of the Egremont Community Gamelan led by Chris Stones, puppeteers led by artist and master puppeteer Ali McCaw, and writer David Napthine.  The idea behind the Cumbrian Wayang is to create a unique art work drawing inspiration from Indonesian traditions but with a distinctly Cumbrian flavour.  The result is a wayang like no other, combining puppets that play instruments, colourful shadow imagery, amazing musical stones and all tied together by the music of the gamelan.

The inspiration for our story ‘The Musical Stonemason’ comes from the famous musical stones of Skiddaw - an extraordinary instrument known technically as a lithophone and housed in Keswick Museum.  The instrument creates a striking musical parallel for the gamelan, and boasts an intriguing history which forms the basis of the story.  The peculiar resonant properties of the rocks from which the instrument is made are something of geological mystery.  They were first discovered in 1785 by Peter Crosthwaite, founder of Keswick Museum, who incorporated them into his new cabinet of curiosities.  It was Joseph Richardson though who fully exploited the musical potential of the Skiddaw stones.  A local stonemason and amateur musician, Richardson toiled away for 13 years to create the massive instrument now housed in Keswick Museum.  With his sons they became something of a musical sensation, touring the country and playing three times for Queen Victoria!  Our story tells of Richardson’s obsession with the Skiddaw stones, and imagines a fictional meeting of Richardson and Crosthwaite somewhere on the slopes of Cumbria’s musical mountain.

www.myspace.com/musicalstones

www.soundwave.org.uk

 

Wayang Kulit - All-Night Shadow Puppet Play: The Building of the Kingdom of Amarta

Saturday 8 September, 11pm - Sunday 9 September, 7am, Clore Ballroom, RFH

Puppeteer: Ki Purbo Asmoro
Musical Director: Rahayu Supanggah

Following a condensed lunchtime performance of shadow puppetry, Southbank Gamelan Players directed by Associate Artist Rahayu Supanggah, accompanied an all-night wayang kulit - shadow play - with master puppeteer Ki Purbo Asmoro.

The Clore ballroom was transformed for an evening of storytelling and gamelan music as puppeteer Ki Purbo Asmoro brought to life The Building of the Kingdom of Amarta, an episode of the epic Mahabharata, flavoured with political satire, jokes and social commentary.

This performance was the first ever full-length wayang kulit in the UK accompanied by a non-Javanese gamelan ensemble. Southbank Gamelan Players were joined by guest psindhen Sukesi who enlivened the dialogue with her exuberant mix of witty banter and virtuosic vocal performance. The play was translated from Javanese in real time by Kathryn Emerson, and the audience were encouraged to bring their own picnics and sleeping bags, chat, and wander freely around the Clore Ballroom to experience the action from both sides of the puppet screen. To the delight of the players and audience alike, Javanese dancer Rianto spontaneously improvised to Andy Channing’s ‘Pig in the Kraton’, played during the clown scene.

Southbank Centre would like to thank the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, for the loan of their beautiful shadow screen and puppets.

Wayang Kulit

Javanese Shadow-play - or wayang kulit - is a complex yet popular art form which has thrived in Javan for over 500 years. Traditionally, wayangs are performed through the night and are concentrated around a single puppeteer (dhalang) who manipulates beautifully filigreed leather and rod puppets, casting his shadows from behind a decorated screen. Sitting cross-legged on the floor for hours on end, the puppeteer uses his foot to jangle metal plates and conducts the musical accompaniment of the gamelan orchestra through direct and veiled aural, visual and poetic cues and riddles.

The wayang is commonly centred around the Hindu Ramayana and Mahabharata epics which have been assimilated into many aspects of Javanese society. The puppeteer assumes the role of intermediary between humans and the gods; his performance combining elements of ritual, allegory, comedy, mythology and social commentary to entertain and instruct his audience and mark significant stages of the life cycle.

Able to compete with modern forms of entertainment, such as television, radio, Western pop music and film, the wayang still communicates effectively to a broad spectrum of Javanese and Indonesian society.

The Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is one of the longest epic poems in the world, originating in India around 300BC. Its story has been adapted over the centuries and is integral to Javanese folklore and culture. The plot revolves around a family feud between two sets of paternal cousins - the Pandhawa (a family of five brothers) and the Kurawa (a family of 99 boys and 1 girl). The Pandhawa and Kurawa, whose fathers were brothers, become bitter rivals and compete for control of the prosperous Kingdom of Astina. As their father was formerly King of Astina, the Pandhawa were named official successors to the throne. Nevertheless, the Kurawa also claim rights to the Kingdom as their father was the eldest son in the family, but was overlooked as king on account of his blindness.

The Kurawa had already enjoyed temporary control over the kingdom after the death of the Pandhawa’s father and were reluctant to relinquish power after the Pandhawa’s coming of age. While the Pandhawa aspire to lead Astina to guide the world toward greater peace and prosperity, the Kurawa have the more selfish motives of ensuring personal power and wealth.

The many-layered plot weaves together the stories of the main characters from birth to their coming of age rituals, marriages, pivotal life struggles and moral choices. Despite repeated attempts to resolve their differences, the feud between the Pandhawa and Kurawa eventually erupts. The Mahabharata reaches its dramatic conclusion with the colossal Baratayuda war in which almost every member of both families is killed.

The Building of the Kingdom of Amarta

When the Pandhawa brothers excape being burnt to death in a booby-trapped house, their wicked cousins, the Kurawa, are determined to destroy them by some other means. They persuade their father, King Drestarastra, to give the Pandhawa a tract of land upon which to build a new home. But this land is the impenetrable forest of Wana Marta, full of ferocious animals and hostile spirits determined to keep the humans out.

When brute force fails, the Pandhawa turn to the advice of their sagely grandfather Abiyasa. They agree a plan that satisfies all, confounds the Kurawa;s schemes and leads to the founding of the glorious city of Amarta.

Synopsis by Jonathan Roberts.

Download a scene-by-scene guide to The Building of the Kingdom of Amarta (pdf)

Performers:

Rahayu Supanggah (Southbank Centre Artist in Residence supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation)

Born in Java into a family of master puppeteers, renowned musician and composer Rahayu Supanggah has become one of Inbonesia’s most prolific artists working in the filed of gamelan music and culture, as well as an internationally pioneering academic and collaborator in this field. We are proud to welcome Rahayu Supanggah as Associate Artist at Southbank Centre to assist the development of the gamelan programme over the next three years.

Ki Purbo Asmoro (Dhalang)
Master dhalang (puppeteer) Ki Purbo Asmoro was born into a family of artists and can trace his lineage through 13 generations of Javanese dhalang. Asmoro’s reputation as a skilled, innovative and entertaining performer has generated a wide community of fans across Indonesia and procured invites to perform shadow plays worldwode with shows in Singapore, Thailand, Greece, London, USA and Austria.
http://www.purboasmoro.com/

Sukesi (Guest Pesindhen - Solo Female Vocalist)
Born in Tulungagung, East Java, pesindhen Sukesi combines a career as a vocal teacher and lecturer at Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI) in Surakarta with that of international performer. Sukesi is a versatile vocalist specialising in a number of traditional Indonesian and contemporary vocal styles. She is also an accomplished gamelan musician skilled in a number of instruments.

Kathryn Emerson (Translator in Real Time)
Kathryn was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but has lived in Indonesia since 1991, studying gamelan and wayang in Surakarta, Central Java, and teaching music at Jakarta International School.

Lukman Aris (Interpreter)
Born in Cilacap, Lukman is a skilled linguist and translator, and has tutored many members of Southbank Gamelan Players in Indonesian and Javanese languages during periods of study in Surakarta, Central Java. Lukman has worked on a number of published translations of wayang stories and prose, and teaches English in a secondary school in Boyolali, Java.

Southbank Gamelan Players
Southbank Gamelan Players- Ensemble in Residence at Southbank Centre - was founded in 1987 by Alec Roth. Working closely with dancers, puppeteers and composers from Indonesia, Europe and the USA, the group has established an international reputation both for its performances of traditional Javanese music and for its championing of new music for gamelan.

John Barber, Robert Campion, Isabelle Carré, Andy Channing, Sophie Clark, Nikhil Dally, Aris Daryono, Cathy Eastburn, Joe Field, Nikki Kemp, Penny King, Xerxes Mazda, Malcolm Milner, John Pawson, Jonathan Roberts, Brad Smith, Pete Smtih, Mike Steel, Simon Steptoe, John Whitfield, Esther Wilds.