Found Sounds UNCG Musicology Journal Volume 2 Issue 1 ­ Fall 2016 Staff Editor­in­Chief Enoch Robbins Assistant Editors Vini Nicole Kuker Editors Sara Horton Thomas Breedon Kelly Norris Faculty Advisor Dr. Elizabeth Keathley Table of Contents Kecak “Monkey Chant” and Authenticity in Balinese Culture Kenan Baker The Mozart Effect Sara Horton Eliza Flower: Composer and Radical Kelly Norris Kecak “Monkey Chant” and Authenticity in Balinese Culture Kenan Baker The kecak “monkey chant” is the most famous and popular art form presented to the Western world that has come out of the island of Bali in Southeast Asia. The synchronized dance movements of the pengecak-pengecak, the hundred or so men chanting in interlocking rhythms or kotekan, and the condensed story of the Ramayana has given Western tourists a taste of Balinese culture that many believe to be the most “traditional, real, and authentic” performances of Balinese culture out there. However, to the citizens of Bali, the kecak is mainly regarded as a means to produce income for their communities. Kecak in Bali has been a tool to impress Western tourists since the 1930s, and to some isn't considered a true embodiment of Balinese culture and entertainment. This may also have to do with the fact that many villages and communities (desa and banjar) that create kecak groups have little musician and dancer involvement in their renditions of kecak, and these performances are so standardized that they are not in line with the ideals of Balinese kreasi baru or “new music.” The goal of this paper is to find concrete evidence of whether the Balinese kecak “monkey chant” can be considered an authentic Balinese art form, or if it has been created solely for the entertainment of Western tourists with no cultural significance to the native population itself. Baker 2 The kecak “monkey chant” is the most famous and popular art form presented to the Western world that has come out of the island of Bali in Southeast Asia. The synchronized dance movements of the pengecak-pengecak, the hundred or so men chanting in interlocking rhythms or kotekan, and the condensed story of the Ramayana has given Western tourists a taste of Balinese culture that many believe to be the most “traditional, real, and authentic” performances of Balinese culture out there.1 However, to the citizens of Bali, the kecak is mainly regarded as a means to produce income for their communities. Kecak in Bali has been a tool to impress Western tourists since the 1930s, and to some isn't considered a true embodiment of Balinese culture and entertainment. This may also have to do with the fact that many villages and communities (desa and banjar) that create kecak groups have little musician and dancer involvement in their renditions of kecak, and these performances are so standardized that they are not in line with the ideals of Balinese kreasi baru or “new music”.2 I argue that the Balinese kecak is an authentic Balinese art form, despite the negative connotations with tourism that the Balinese often attribute to it. The origins of kecak dance and chant have purely Balinese roots in sanghyang dadari trances, with Balinese dancers such as Limbak in the 1930s acting out the story of Kumbakharna with it. Though a German artist, Walter Spies, had a hand in combining the vocal pengecak to the story of the Ramayana, these are all still Balinese art traditions with little Western-European influences. The kecak chant itself is also musically connected to the playing of instrumental gamelans in Bali. The use of kotekan or interlocking rhythms, colotomic structures through part delineation, heterophony, and a sense of communal brilliance or Ramé are traits shared between the vocal kecak and Balinese gamelan. Finally, though many renditions of kecak exist in Bali that are focused on tourism and creating 1 David, Ann R., and Linda E. Dankworth. Author Kendra Stepputat. Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives: Identity, Embodiment, and Culture. 2014. 121-122 2 Ibid. 118-119 Baker 3 income for the island at large, modern kecak performances titled kecak kreasi or kecak kontemporer have been performed that are more similar to the roots of kecak. Kecak kreasi uses instances of stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, rather than a condensed version of the Ramayana itself. The pengecak chant groups of these kecak kreasi also have more complex movements and dance, rather than sitting still in the more common kecak ramayana groups. The complexity of kecak kreasi has drawn more Balinese audiences to watch these performances than the common Western tourist, which is more in line to the Balinese concept of kreasi baru (new creation) and kreasi baleganjur. This new music builds on the successive generations of traditional Balinese music and turns it into something new, much like the instrumental gamelan gong kebyar.3 With all of these ties to contemporary and original Balinese culture, I argue that kecak is a genre of music in Bali that has significant cultural importance to the island of Bali, not just as a tourist industry but as a stand-alone music and dance genre. In order to understand how kecak came to be known in its current iteration as a tourist driven art, it's important to understand the origin of kecak. The kecak was formerly just a vocal accompaniment to the varieties of trance dances called sanghyang, and the rhythmic cak chanting would help drive dancers into a trance through their repetition and colotomic structure.4 It wasn't until one of the first kecak groups were developed in Bedoloe, led by the great Baris dancer Limbak, that kecak was developed as a secular, independent art form. The German artist Walter Spies not only urged and advised Limbak to create this new art form, but also wrote and documented the first kecak that the group had created. In Spies' writing, there is no hint of his own influences attempting to control the kecak dances, but more a recording and explanation of what was happening before him while watching Limbak's group. He mentions the use of the 3 Miller, Terry E, and Sean Williams. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 4: Southeast Asia. New York: Garland Pub, 1998. 729-730 4 Zoete, Beryl de and Walter Spies. Dance and drama in Bali. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1974. 83 Baker 4 Ramayana as the basis for the kecak story, the use of gamelan, the story of Kumbhakarna portrayed by the dancer Limbak, and the primarily exorcistic nature of kecak which related these early kecak dances more to sanghyang trance dances than anything else.5 Spies seemed to have a rapt admiration for the Balinese culture, describing the kecak dancing and singing as, “physical splendour” and “murmured bouts of fierce dialogue.”6 Knowing this, we realize that the kecak is a purely Balinese art form, and that Spies as a German artist wished to merely contribute to the art of the Balinese, and not monetize it for tourism. What complicates this narrative of the origin of kecak is that both the villages of Bedulu and Bona seemed to have invented the art form at the same time. As Spies was advising this new iteration of kecak for the German film Die Isle der Damonen (The Island of Demons), a second form of kecak ramayana was taking place and being created by artists I Gusti Lanang Oka of Bona Gianyar and I Nengah Mudarya.7 These artists too blended vocal kecak with the now tourist played story of “The Abduction of Sita” or Kapandung Dewi Sita.8 Kecak in Bedulu with Spies and Limbak did not seem to garner as much attention as the kecak of Bona, as this village was the only village that performed kecak actively for tourists. The teachers of these troupes then expanded kecak to all over Bali after it became clear what a lucrative tourist venture kecak could be.9 What isn't clear about this narrative is whether the ritual kecak of Bedulu or the tourist driven kecak of Bona came first. What is clear is that Bona made the kecak popular in the tourist industry with the establishment of “The Abduction of Sita” as the story that they would tell tourists over and over again. Eventually the quality of these kecak troupes began to drop as Balinese all over the island realized that they could use this kecak story to gather income for their 5 Ibid. 83-85 6 Ibid, 84-85 7 Dibia, I Wayan. Kecak: The vocal chant of Bali. Denpasar: Harto Art Books, 1996. 7-8 8 Ibid. 8 9 Ibid. 8-9 Baker 5 individual communities, which leads us to a drop in the authenticity and artistic values of the kecak in the eyes of the Balinese people. Not only this, but a Western world then starts to write about the kecak from a perspective that does not understand the ritualistic origin of the art form, nor the Ramayana story behind it. Movies such as Wake of The Red Witch (1948) and Baraka (1992) portrays the kecak as an ancient and quintessential Balinese art form, without facing the issue that it is a modernized Balinese art form borrowing from ancient tradition.10 Travel writing further creates problems for this view of kecak as, “one of the last remaining primitive orgies to be seen on the face of the earth,” obscuring the original form of the genre.11 For Western audiences, kecak isn't a retelling of a story of the Ramayana, but is now packaged as a secular performance of sensationalism, using ancient Balinese instrumental and vocal practices in a modern context to impress Western tourists and gain their income.