Hearing The First Smile
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| Gunungan courtesy of John Casey |
More than
40 years ago a group of Indonesian characters quit their homeland for ever.
They didn’t travel lightly. On their 7,600 kilometer journey south they carried
something rare and precious – the indigenous culture of Cirebon.
Why did
they flee? Perhaps they were escaping a
society little interested in their presence, threatening even. Had they stayed
in the north coast port, soulless brutes might have attacked during a wave of
religious intolerance.
For not all
wanted to maintain the celebrities’ ancient and impressive lineage, claiming
supporters were idolatrous and should be purged. The tomb of Sunan Gunungjati,
one of the 15th century Walisongo
(nine saints), is in the West Java city and reportedly threatened by
extremists following the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi sect.
The
travellers’ back story is threadbare. Before moving they probably lived in the
16th century Keraton Kasepuhan (Sultan’s palace),
Maybe they
were asylum seekers sent by their guardians to a haven where the locals had a
reputation for tolerance, though knowing little about the newcomers’
culture. Would they be accepted or
pushed aside and ignored?
Today we happily
report that all fears proved groundless. According to their custodian Jennifer
Shennan (left) the Indonesians settled well and are often seen in public where they
charm and mystify.
Her late
husband Dr Allan Thomas was the rescuer.
He paid several sacks of rice to secure their freedom, packing them in
stout timber boxes for their long flight.
When the
lids were lifted the migrants, guarded by the plump sage Semar, emerged to the
delight of the welcoming onlookers. And
so The First Smile Gamelan and
accompanying puppets began their new life in New Zealand.
The
ten-piece collection of instruments includes a rare gambang kayu a
wooden xylophone using teak slats. Most
ensembles have only brass metallophones.
“They won’t
be going back,” said Shennan, a dance teacher and musician in Wellington. “We
thought about it after Allan died in 2010.
“But as the
Indonesian Ambassador Jose Tavares says, the collection has been here so long
it’s now a New Zealand gamelan.
“Before being
offered to Allan they hadn’t been played for 50 years – perhaps longer because
of religious prohibitions on wayang kulit performances. The instruments
are certainly antique – maybe 400 years.
“Others
have warned that if the gongs went back the brass might be cut up and melted
down.”
That won’t
happen in NZ where the instruments and puppets live in The Long Hall on a
splendid clifftop overlooking Wellington harbor. Till recently they were used
regularly for concerts but need repairs.
These will be funded by the Indonesian Embassy.
Ethnomusicologist
Thomas encountered the gamelan in the 1970s while studying in Java. At the time he wrote:
‘Gamelan
music is a curious mixture of the obvious and the intricate. It is a simple sound effect and rich
sophisticated literature at the same time. The exhilaration of gamelan for a
Westerner is in the simple fact of it being alive – not castrated for a concert’.
Shennan
said her late husband often spoke of music going beyond business and politics,
helping people from different cultures get to know and understand each other
better through feeling.
“When we
perform in NZ audiences are magnetized,” she said. “Even people who know
nothing about Indonesia don’t just look and leave. They get drawn in by the magic, and because
they can wander around and see both sides of the screen.
“There’s
nothing precious about the tradition.
I’ve never heard anyone say outsiders shouldn’t be involved. On the contrary, Indonesians want to share.”
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| Picture courtesy John Casey |
The
collection of 140 puppets includes some weird figures, like the utterly vile
Ketepeng Reges (left) , evil spirits which try to break the concentration of
meditators, and Badjul Sengara, a giant with the face of a crocodile.
Then
there’s Dewi Rekatawati, who looks like something between a mermaid and a
grub. She’s a wife of Bima, one of the
five Pandava brothers who fought their cousins the Kauravas in the ancient
Mahabharata classic.
Her son
Gatotkaca has magical powers to fly. His
headdress loops forward and is attached to the cap, a signature mark of the
Cirebon puppets. Marking pauses in the
theater are the showstopping gunungan the
mountain-shaped symbols also known as the Tree of Life.
Earlier this year Dhalang (puppet master) Joko Susilo of Otago University
curated an exhibition of the puppets in a near Wellington regional gallery
called Shadow Play to showcase Indonesian
art and music.
He said the
wayang purwa (original puppets) were
created to stage the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, along with old
Javanese tales and satires, and celebrations of local events like weddings and
anniversaries.
In its new
world the gamelan doesn’t always perform traditional works. Thomas and his friend, the late Jack Body
from the NZ School of Music, were also composers, Visual artist Gerard
Crewdson, (below) who plays the kenong (a
high-pitch cradled gong), has written Cantor’s
Infinity.
This is based
on the calculations of 19th century German academic Georg Cantor who
developed set theory in mathematical logic. Less complex is the farewell song Now is the Hour which has been adapted
for the gamelan.
The players
are multitalented and include Tai Cha teachers, a computer programmer and
librarians.
Because of
its age and fragility The First Smile is
usually heard in the Long Hall. Most
outside performances are now conducted on a more modern set donated by the late
Ibu Tien Soeharto, wife of Indonesia’s second president.
It’s called
Gamelan Padhang Moncar. It’s led by artistic director Budi S Putra
and its players include some musicians from The
First Smile.
“Padhang is brightness or daylight in Javanese, while Moncar means growing or developing vigorously,” said manager
Dr Megan Collins. “We are the first gamelan in the world to see the new day.
(The International Date Line running down the 180 degree longitude passes alongside
NZ).
“It can
also be interpreted as harmony and growth reflecting the aspirations of the
group, so we’re planning to play in Java and Bali next year”
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First published in The Jakarta Post 25 May 2016)
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