PROGRAM · Web viewPROGRAM Making Connections with the Music of Wonosobo in Java's Dieng Plateau: Interdisciplinary Insights around the Bundengan, a Duck-herd's Zither A One-day International

PROGRAM

Making Connections with the Music of Wonosobo in Java's Dieng Plateau:

Interdisciplinary Insights around the Bundengan, a Duck-herd's Zither

A One-day International Symposium,

Exhibition of Rare Indonesian Musical Instruments, and

Concert of Music and Dance

Thursday 8th February 2018, 8.30 am - 8.30pm

“Music in a Shell: the Bundengan”

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Making Connections with the Music of Wonosobo in Java's Dieng Plateau: Interdisciplinary Insights around the Bundengan, a Duck-herd's Zither

A One-day International Symposium, Exhibition of Rare Indonesian Musical Instruments, and Concert of Music and Dance

Thursday 8th February 2018, 8.30 am - 8.30pm “Music in a Shell: the Bundengan”

VENUE Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music Auditorium and Foyer, Performing Arts Building/ Building 68 55 Scenic Boulevard Monash University VICTORIA 3800, Australia

This one-day International Symposium, Exhibition of Rare Indonesian Musical Instruments, and Concert of music and dance titled “Music in a Shell: the Bundengan” will explore the unique characteristics of the little-known culture of the Dieng Plateau in Central Java, Indonesia. It will focus on the socio-cultural, acoustic and instrument-building aspects of the Wonosobo Regency’s bundengan zither which is traditionally played by duck-herds in this beautiful mountainous area that is also famous for its 7th-8th century Shivaite temples. A team of expert musicians, instrument makers and scholars from Wonosobo will join Australian and American ethnomusicologists and Indonesian engineers to tell stories and present papers on the socio-historical, functional, acoustic, timbral, dynamic, organological and ergological aspects of the instrument and its revival. There will also be live and recorded performances of the music, associated dances, short films, and discussions on the development of bundengan music by contemporary composers and choreographers.

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International Symposium: Bundengan Connections: Interdisciplinary Insights around a Rare Javanese Musical Instrument from Wonosobo

 SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM with ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS and MAMU TOUR:9.30am-4.30pm

8.30am: Symposium Registration and coffee/tea

9.30am: Welcome: Professor Cat Hope, Head, Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music

9.35am: Introduction: Professor Margaret Kartomi AM, FAHA

9.40am: LAUNCH of SYMPOSIUM by Mr Konfir Kabo, Managing Partner of Kabo

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Lawyers

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SESSION 1: KEYNOTE ADDRESS: 10.00am - 10.45am

Chair: Associate Professor Julian Millie, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University

“Conservation by Making Connections: Building Social Links between Cultural Collections and Living Culture”

Rosie Cook MA, Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation (GCCMC), University of Melbourne,

ABSTRACT

The conservation of objects relating to performance, such as the musical instruments in the Music Archive of Monash University, is significantly enriched by the creation of links to living culture. The conservation and documentation of the rare Javanese instrument, the bundengan, has resulted in a network across disciplines and communities in Australia and Indonesia. Its significance has expanded through a community-led revival movement, including but not limited to the Making Connections project, involving performances, presentations and workshops aiming to raise awareness of bundengan in both countries.

Embracing the role of conservators in identifying, preserving and creating meaning, this paper demonstrates the richness of knowledge uncovered through collaborative experiences. Standard concepts of participant observation and consultation are transcended, by reframing fieldwork as an opportunity for researchers to align and engage deeply with community needs and projects. This paper, and the Making Connections project as a whole, demonstrate the value of a research method Tim Ingold defines as “correspondence”1, to ensure that research ultimately is organically directed by community needs, and responds with sustainable, tangible, long-term outputs.

This paper emphasises the need for conservators to build capacity and initiate a strong social network around museums and research collections, focusing on the impact of this project within the community and the expansion of its significance across different disciplines and fields. As demonstrated by the case study of the bundengan at the Music Archive of Monash University, this social network collectively supports living culture, by emphasising principles of respect, acknowledgment, collaboration, knowledge exchange, and social contribution. The integration of conservation concepts across disciplines and cultures results in the bringing together of cultural heritage, academic research, and artistic creativity, to support the revival and transmission of both tangible and intangible cultural practices.

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MORNING TEA: 10.45am - 11.15am

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1 Ingold, T .2013. Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture (Oxon: Routledge)

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SESSION 2: 11.15am - 11.45am

Chair: Professor Barbara Hatley, University of Tasmania

PAPER 1: 11.15am - 11.35am

“Kowangan Variations: Divergent Evolution and Musical Scarcity in Two Javanese Communities”

Palmer Keen, ethnomusicologist and creator of Aural Archipelago

ABSTRACT

Unbeknownst to each other, two communities in the neighbouring regions of Wonosobo and Temanggung in Central Java are both in the midst of reviving a musical instrument once called kowangan. As famously described and documented by the pioneering Dutch ethnomusicologist, Jaap Kunst, the kowangan was a woven bamboo herder’s shelter transformed into an idiosyncratic zither. Once fairly widespread across a swath of Central Java’s highlands, this instrument is now finding new life in two isolated revival movements: as bundengan in Wonosobo, and as cengklungan  in Temanggung. Both communities are taking the shared musical ancestor of the kowangan and rooting its revival in regional claims, with both the bundengan and the cengklungan “sold” as the only instrument of its kind in the world. In a presentation based on fieldwork and multi-media documentation, I’ll explore and contrast the efforts to revive these related musical instruments in their respective communities. How have these communities’ understandings of their musical pasts shaped their present revival movements? How do once-shared musical traditions undergo divergent evolution in the process of modern revival? Finally, how sustainable is a musical tradition whose perceived value is rooted in its very scarcity? 

PAPER 2: 11.35am - 11.55am

“An Organological Study of the Bundengan Zither in Wonosobo”

Sa’id Abdulloh BA (in Ethnomusicology) and Luqmanul Chakim BA (in Ethnomusicology), Indonesian Institute of Arts, Surakarta

ABSTRACT

The sound-creating nature and construction of the musical instrument named kowangan is unique. Its main function is not for performance but to serve as a cape or coat which doubles as an instrument called a bundengan. It can be described in terms of the ethnomusicological discipline of organology. This paper uses the organological principle of Sri Hendarto (2011) which is based on an instrument’s building techniques, including the choice of materials, method of construction, and installation of sources of sound within the instrument. The body of the bundengan is its resonator. Its sources of sound production are the three pieces of bamboo attached within it that when plucked sound like a drum/kendhang, and the several strings that are attached and plucked to produce melody. The sounds thus created imitate the sounds of the surrounding society’s musical culture. The structure and dynamics of the sounds thus produced are determined by the nature of the body of the kowangan and its

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playing techniques, which produce a range of rhythms and tempi. These findings also correlate with a previous research project by Sa’id Abdulloh titled “The Study of the Organology of Bundengan Music of Wonosobo” (2017). The outcomes of this research based on the playing and making of the bundengan instrument have become part of the subdiscipline of applied ethnomusicology.

PAPER 3: 11.55am - 12-15pm

“Music and Music Theatre Traditions in Wonosobo, the Dieng Plateau, and Surrounding Mountainous Areas: the 1920s and 1970s Compared”

Professor Margaret Kartomi, Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to provide a contextual backdrop to recent research on the topic of this Symposium: the duck-herds’ zither in Wonosobo and Temenggung. It discusses the music-culture of Dieng and surrounds as we found it in 1971 and compares it with Dieng’s culture as documented by Jaap Kunst in the 1920s. The duck-herds’ zither called kowangan was used both as a cape or umbrella and as a musical instrument in Wonosobo, nearby Boyolali, and further afield in Banjarnegara (55 km from Dieng), Sukareja, and Gresik regencies, while in the 1970s it was still in common use around Wonosobo and nearby Dieng villages but becoming rare elsewhere.

A century ago the kowangan was part of a music culture that was largely based on its Hindu-Buddhist past, though its wayang golek puppet masters also performed Amir Hamzah stories associated with the early spread of Islam from the nearby Kudus area as well as the pre-Muslim Panji romance. The culture also comprised wayang purwa, wayang gedog/Panji and wayang klithik puppet theatre forms, the latter focused mainly on the legend of Hindu Majapahit’s romantic Damar Wulan hero against the “rough” king Menakjinggo of the Hindu Balambangan kingdom on Java’s eastern tip.  Of Wonosobo's 184 gamelan in the 1920s, 167 were tuned in slendro and only 17 in pelog. In 1971 we recorded another local music theatre form that was also based on episodes from the Damar Wulan epic: prajuritan (“kraton/palace soldiery”), in which artists sang and danced the Damar Wulan stories in lengthy episodes accompanied by gamelan slendro music. In recent years, as the local culture shifted away from a Javanese agricultural lifestyle towards a modernising culture, there has been a revitalisation of both the bundengan and prajuritan performance traditions as iconic representations of the creative economy.

SESSION Q & A and Discussion: 12.15 - 12.45pm

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LUNCH 12.45pm - 2.00pm

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SESSION 3: 2.00pm - 3.00pm

Chair: Dr Helen Pausacker, University of Melbourne

PAPER 4: 2.00pm - 2.20pm

“Bundengan 2.0: an Acoustic Study”

Dr Indraswari Kusumaningtyas and Dr Gea O.F. Parikesit, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta

ABSTRACT

Many musical instruments have evolved as the result of collaborations between instrument makers, musicians and engineers. To be able to contribute to the collaboration, the engineers need first to understand the basic mechanisms of the instrument being analysed. For example, violin makers tell us that small variations in the design of the bridge can significantly affect the instrument’s sound quality. Engineers support them by providing a kind of map so that the bridge design can be altered in a systematic way. The same applies to the endangered musical instrument from Wonosobo - the bundengan. Discussions with bundengan musicians have allowed us to identify an important problem that affects the playability of the bundengan and hinders some people from playing the instrument: how best to tune the bundengan so that it stays in tune for a long time. In this presentation, we explain the results of our investigation of the nature of bundengan strings, which are quite unique compared to other string instruments. Using high speed optical observations, acoustical measurements, and computer simulations, we have unravelled the secret of the sound production mechanism of the bundengan strings.

PAPER 5: 2.20pm – 2.30pm

“Consultation to interactions: Cultural materials conservation and the music archive”

Dr Nicole Tse, Cultural Conservator, Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation (GCCMC), University of Melbourne, ABSTRACT

Cultural materials conservation develops capacity to conserve continuing cultural records. Through interactions and understanding, we aim to enable individuals and communities to explore their past, create identity and community in the present, and access their heritage into the future. The Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation (the then Ian Potter Arts Conservation Centre) first worked with the Music Archive of Monash University in 1997 as part of a National Library of Australia supported consultancy and survey. Years on, sustainability of the relationship through staff and student research, embedded praxis of conservation and ethnomusicology student learning and today’s event, has expanded to a community of practice and broader professional ethics. Once presented as a positivist laboratory based practice, cultural materials conservation is exploring the processes that are generating the instruments themselves and their materiality across hierarchies of knowledge.

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Grounded in interactions, this paper will reflect on the trajectory of various approaches at the boundary of cultural materials conservation and the music archive with a number of case study projects residing in materiality of objects, their interactivity, performativity and associations.  PAPER 6: 2.30pm – 2.50pm

“Handmade, improvised and whimsical - making your own instrument in village Indonesia”

Dr David Mitchell, Monash University

ABSTRACT

A child bangs on their mother’s saucepans, or bangs two bamboo sticks together - in these ways a child discovers music, improvising with the materials at hand. Out in simple villages on the margins of the economy, in a subsistence world where money is a rare commodity, making music has to begin with making your own instrument out of the materials at hand.

The Dieng bundengan seems to have been born in such a social context, where re-purposing a handmade umbrella is a perfectly logical and sensible thing to do. The musical umbrella will fill in the quiet hours watching the ducks in rice fields, in the intervals between the rain. It is an intricate creation, designed to fit a very specific purpose. I am reminded of several other very peculiar instruments from the southeastern corner of the Indonesian archipelago, like the sasando of Rote and the jungga of Sumba. We will listen to some of the interesting sounds they make. 

SESSION Q & A and Discussion: 2.50pm - 3.10pm

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3.10pm - 4.10pm: Guided Tour of the Exhibition of Rare Indonesian Musical Instruments, followed by tour of the Music Archive of Monash University (MAMU), 4th Floor South, Menzies Building 11, led by MAMU Curator Bronia Kornhauser MA and Assistant Curators: Dr Annette Bowie and Dr Anthea Skinner

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Launch of the Music Archive of Monash University’s Exhibition: A Duck-herd’s Zither on Java’s Dieng Plateau and Other Rare Indonesian Musical Instruments.

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Mr Iwan Freddy Hari Susanto, Minister Counsellor, Embassy of Indonesia, Canberra

5.30 for 6.00pm

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Music Auditorium and Foyer, Building 68, Performing Arts Centre (includes Refreshments)

Evening event: 7.10pm - 8.30pm: Music Auditorium

PROGRAM:

Introduced by Dr Jonathan McIntosh, Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology, Monash University

Documentary Films

Aura Magis Musik Bundengan (Magical Aura of Bundengan Music) by Bambang Hengky 

Music in a Shell by Sa'id Abdulloh 

Performances of Bundengan Music, Songs and Dances by Guest Artists from Wonosobo Regency in Dieng.

Synopsis of the Performance: “Music in a Shell: the Bundengan”

The Ngesti Laras Troupe has developed the performances presented tonight on the basis of the fascinating story of “Music in a Shell: the Bundengan”. The story was told to our team of artists by researchers into the bundengan instrument, the shape of which has been described as “shield-like”, or like “the shell of a beetle” (Jaap Kunst, Palmer Keen). Initially used by duck-herds, the bundengan became a musical instrument after sound-producing materials were installed within it. The performance depicts how people have been playing the bundengan for centuries in the rice fields and while herding ducks, and how it became a folk music instrument. The story then moves from the older generation’s use of the instrument to the younger generation’s in the era of its revitalisation, for new variations of the bundengan tradition are now being developed, but without destroying its fundamentals. Collaborations between artists produce new ideas, moving the tradition toward expression of today’s modernising and globalising culture. The bundengan is played today with other instruments and combined with dance and the visual arts. Tonight the performers of “Music in a Shell” will depict this story.

1. Songs of Welcome: Sugeng rawuh dan kinayakan with bundengan music: Sontholoyo2. The daily life of farmers and duck-herds with kowangan3. Dialogue: how the kowangan became a bundengan. A duck-herd feels bored while

waiting under a kowangan for the rain to stop, then converts the kowangan into a bundengan

4. Songs: Sontoloyo and Angger Denok sung by Luqmanul Chalim, with bundengan played by Sa’id Abdulloh

5. “The Rain Stops”: How the Bundengan and a Dance become a Stage Performance  

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6. Songs: “Sulasih – Sarindoro” with dance by Ibu Mulyani7. Medley of Lagu Dolanan (Children’s Songs): Padang Bulan (“Field Moon”), Prau Layar

(“The Boat Sails”) 8. Closing song: Gondang Keli

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BIOS

Rosie Cook MA is a Melbourne-based cultural materials conservator. After studies in Chinese and Art History at SOAS, London and studying and working in China, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Australia, she graduated with a Masters of Cultural Conservation at the University of Melbourne in 2016, winning the Copland Award for the Best Conservation Minor Thesis. She was recipient of a 2017 Asialink residency funded by Creative Victoria. Her conservation practice focuses on world cultures, performance and community-led conservation, with projects in Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Sa’id Abdulloh received a BA in ethnomusicology from the Indonesian Institute of Arts (ISI Solo). After completing his 2016 research project and writing his thesis titled “An Organological Study of Bundengan Music,” he became a bundengan musician and activist based in Wonosobo. Sa'id is a core member of the Making Connections project, a talented instrument-builder, and a bundengan player.

Luqmanul Chakim is an ethnomusicologist and musician from Wonosobo. After being awarded his BA in Ethnomusicology at ISI Solo and writing his 2015 scientific paper entitled “The Potential of Trompet Ngomong as a Communication Tool for Mute People”, he was recognised as one of Indonesia’s “Top 15 Outstanding Students”. Lukman joined the Making Connections project to help raise awareness of the endangered bundengan and promote Javanese music and heritage.

Professor Barbara Hatley taught Indonesian Studies at Monash University and at the University of Tasmania, where she now has a professor emeritus position. Her major research interest over many years has been the way Indonesian, particularly Javanese, theatre gives expression to the social experience and sense of identity of performers and audience members. She explored this process in the popular theatre forms ludruk and ketoprak while living in East Java in the early 1970s, then conducted research in Yogyakarta for her PhD thesis on ketoprak. In her later work the gaze widens to include also modern Indonesian-language theatre and experimental blended forms, in attempting to trace the way performances have responded to and participated in the dramatic social transformations taking place in Indonesian society in recent decades, and continue to do so today.

Mr Konfir Kabo, Managing Partner of Kabo Lawyers Konfir was born in Makassar, Indonesia. At the age of 14, he was sent to Melbourne to continue his secondary education at Caulfield Grammar School, Melbourne. He entered Monash University to do Law and Commerce in 1992. He was admitted as a solicitor and

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barrister of the Supreme Court of Victoria and the High Court of Australian 1998. He is also Fellow of the Australia and New Zealand College of Notaries.

He began his career with NA Young & Co. Solicitors, and in 2001 started Kabo Lawyers. Besides running his own law firm, Konfir is also involved with various Indonesian related organisations, such as The Indonesian Business Centre - Melbourne, Festival Indonesia, the Australia-Indonesia Business Council/AIBC, and Balai Bahasa dan Budaya (Language and Culture Council) in Victoria and Tasmania. In 2016, Konfir and his wife, Monica Lim founded Project 11, an initiative that support artists and projects which make an imprint on their field, push the boundaries, and explore new ideas.

Professor Margaret Kartomi AM, FAHA of the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University is an Indonesia-focused ethnomusicologist and recipient of the 2016 Cultural Award of the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Education. She recently published Musical Journeys in Sumatra, a book on the music-cultures of six of Sumatra’s ten provinces, and is currently researching the music of Sumatra’s other four provinces. She is founding Director of the Music Archive of Monash University/MAMU (from 1975).

Palmer Keen is an American DIY ethnomusicologist and the founder of Aural Archipelago, a multi-media digital archive project focused on documenting and raising awareness about musical traditions across the Indonesian archipelago. His work mixes field recording, video, photography, in-depth writing and documentary ethnomusicology to share with the world. He recently took a team of Indonesian artists to perform in several European countries.

Dr Indraswari Kusumaningtyas is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Universitas Gadjah Mada. Since 2010, she has conducted research on the music acoustics of wooden and bamboo materials, classical guitars, and recently, the bundengan. With fellow researcher Dr Gea Parikesit, she has a strong social motivation to support the bundengan musicians of Wonosobo in their understanding and development of bundengan as a musical genre. Making Connections has been delighted to have their support and involvement as they partner with multiple universities in Indonesia and Australia and raise academic awareness of this unique instrument in addition to the grassroots revival movement

Ibu Mulyani teaches bundengan at the SMP2 in Selomerto. She is a lynchpin of the contemporary bundengan revival movement in Central Java and a fundamental member of Making Connections. A graduate of Yogyakarta University, Bu Mul is the Head of the Ngesti Laras Foundation, promoting and teaching traditional Javanese dance and music, and a passionate leader and outstanding spokesperson for the bundengan movement in Indonesia, organising many spectacular events throughout Wonosobo.

Dr. Gea O.F. Parikesit is a faculty staff member at the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Gadjah Mada. He graduated from Institut Teknologi Bandung and Technische Universiteit Delft (The Netherlands). In 2014 he published a paper titled “How to see shadows in 3D”. Using the method published in

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this paper, he created an artwork of 3D Wayang Kulit, exhibited in Jogja Art Weeks, 2015. He also applied this method to quantitatively measure and analyse the 3D puppet movements in wayang kulit performances. As an extension of this research since 2017, he has studied the endangered bundengan musical instrument that imitates the sound of gamelan that accompanies wayang kulit performances. In quantitatively studying the movement of cultural objects he aims to understand how these objects are played and can be better conserved.

Dr Helen Pausacker is a specialist researcher on Javanese wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre) and an experienced dhalang (puppet master), having published Behind the Shadows: Understanding a Wayang Performance  (Indonesian Arts Society, 1996). She has also worked in a number of Indonesia-related positions including as lecturer and tutor in History, and is currently Deputy Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS), an Executive Editor for the Australian Journal of Asian Law and a Principal Researcher with the Asian Law Centre and CILIS at The University of Melbourne.

Dr Nicole Tse is part of the research and teaching team at the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, The University of Melbourne. Her research focusses on the development and support of regionally relevant conservation approaches for works of art in tropical Southeast Asia, currently being pursued as part of APTCCARN (Asia Pacific Tropical Climate Conservation Art Research Network, www.aptccarn.com). In 2017, Nicole was an IIAS Affiliated Fellow at the University of Leiden, Netherlands (Sept-Nov 2017), and co-convened a meeting on ‘Natural disasters and cultural heritage in the Philippines: Knowledge sharing, decision making and conservation’, Tagbilaran City and Towns on the island of Bohol, the Philippines with the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP), SAMEO SPAFA) in April 2017 (www.aptccarn.com/5th-meeting).

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are very grateful for material and moral support from the Helen Soemardjo Arts Fund; the External Relations, Development and Alumni (ERDA) Office of the President and Vice-Chancellor of Monash University; Professor Sharon Pickering, Dean of the Faculty of Arts Monash University; Professor Cat Hope, Head of the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music; Ibu Dewi Wahab, Indonesian Consul-General in Victoria and Tasmania; Damien Farrell and Lisa Mitchell of ERDA; Karl Willebrant of the School of Music; Sharon Elliott; Damien Niklaus; Amy Lim; Tom Bolton; Dr Helen Pausacker of The University of Melbourne Law School; The Faculty Indonesia Strategy Group and the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne; The University of Sydney, Southeast Asia Centre; and The Bupati of Wonosobo Regency, Indonesia.

WELCOME

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We would also like to welcome our Wonosobo government guests: Mr Agus Subagiyo, Vice-Regent and Sekretaris Daerah Kabupaten Wonosobo; Mr Amin Suradi, Head of the Department of Regional Development Planning; and Mr Mohammad Kristijadi, Head of the Office for Management of Regional Revenue, Finance and Assets.

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