[PREV - BALINESE_MUSIC] [TOP]
May 01, 2006
Additions: June 14, 2006
I would guess most of you are
somewhat familiar with the Balinese
"Kecak" or "Fire Dance" and the
"Monkey Chant" that goes with it. "Kchak! Ke-chak!
Chak-ke-Chak-ke- There's a
This is one of the many Chak-ke-Chak-ke..." prominent
things that I came scene in
across when I was the film
doing the college "Baraka"
radio thing seriously that features
in the mid-90s... the Kecak.
Pursuing an And come to
intensive self- think of it
taught I played
curriculum in the soundtrack
(weird) music to that
appreciation. movie on the
air quite
At some point all a bit --
of us who were I was familiar
treading these with it long
paths heard a before I
stunning saw the
revelation: movie --
though I think
This chant is not Walking I focused
of ancient origin. backwards, more heavily
as always. on the
It was created in "monk with
modern times with bell" track.
the assistance One version
of some white guy. of the story (often mixing
that I heard: it all with
Oh my god, this was a something else)
isn't that "monk" (With
dissapointing? stationed in gong MIXING
Bali. rather
This means than
that the Monkey bell?) It occurs to
Chant is not me I've seen
*authentic*. this syndrome
elsewhere...
(racially
pure?) Someone doing
scholarly work
PRIME_DIRECTIVE But the Westerner in a distant
who worked on the time and place
"Kecak" was not a *must* be
"monk" of some "a monk".
sort, but rather
an expatriate
german artist and
musician named
"Walter Spies".
PITA_MAHA
One reason we turn He did not develop the
toward "ethnic" Kecak his own, of course,
music is on a and he's usually credited
quest for the alien. as the co-creator,
collaborating with
How terrible to Limbak, a Balinese fellow
discover it's not who performed the Kecak
truly alien, but frequently in the 1930s.
contaminated by
our own hands. If "Walter Spies" had
worked with the
Brooklyn Boys Choir,
(Gaze at your hands. he might have achieved
Feel the revulsion.) something interesting
but it certainly
wouldn't have been
the "Kecak".
STRANGE_TRIANGLE
So in what sense
can you say that
the Kecak is not
authentically
Balinese?
Gamelan music itself
has undergone many
transformations over
the years... around
(No, not the turn of the century,
this a new style, "kebyar"
century, became all the rage.
*that*
century.) Is it less "authentic"
because it was still
considered new and
exciting in the 1930s?
The version of the
Kecak that Limbak's
ensemble performed Photographs of them
was much different in action are on
than the modern display at the Nekka
performances. Museum in Campuhan.
The modern Kecak
uses a much larger
ensemble, it has
a more theatrical
quality, with more
flame effects and
costumes; it has
more of a scripted
narrative, and
much less of the
improvisational
acting that
Limback used in
interludes...
It couldn't be that
the performance I
saw in Ubud is not
the *real thing*
could it?
It couldn't Everywhere you
perhaps, be a thing go, you find ghosts (A show running
which is *merely for of another time. longer than Cats,
tourists*, could it? and I question
Where is the it's authenticity?)
true flame?
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