Two corners of RI at the Sydney Opera House

By Dewi Anggraeni

SYDNEY (JP): You close your eyes and relax your senses. Almost involuntarily images of peaceful West Javanese countryside descend on you. Then scenes of folktales of Nagari Pasundan begin to insinuate themselves into your consciousness.

You see Purbasari Ayu Wangi being bullied by her older sisters, then befriended by Lutung Kasarung, the handsome prince presently under his own mother's spell. It is heart-rending. It is also subversively erotic. It is definitely enchanting. Just do not open your eyes in a hurry.

You are not in a hypnotist's chair. You are attending a performance by Seuweu Pajajaran, in the Studio Theatre of the Sydney Opera House, Australia.

The Australian Institute of Eastern Music staged a Festival of Asian Music and Dance from April 27 to April 29, featuring artists from China, India, Tibet, Indonesia, Japan, and Persia.

Indonesia was represented by the Sundanese Seuweu Pajajaran and a one-man performer from Minangkabau, West Sumatra. While many in the audience were familiar with Eastern music and dance, a greater number were merely genuinely interested in non-western performing arts.

So while fascinated, they were also a little lost during Seuweu Pajajaran's performance of tembang Sunda (Sundanese sung poetry), since there was very little explanation during the introduction of the group.

Iwan Mulyana on the suling (bamboo flute), Yusdiana on the kacapi kawih and Galih G on the kacapi indung, played some Mamaos tunes in free rhythm style, and some Panambih tunes in a metric four beat rhythm. The transition from the Mamaos to the Panambih was so smooth the audience only felt a slight pickup, which in western music could happen several times in a single number.

Compared to a western musical performance, Seuweu Pajajaran's repertoire, while elaborate, came across as low-key. It was not a performance in the western sense.

In fact, for a Sundanese in the audience, it would have been strange to see the group on center stage surrounded by an audience intent solely on watching and listening. It was more of an ambience music, usually engendering particular background moods.

The power the musicians exert over the audience is global but subliminal, while western musicians' grip over their audience tends to be more immediate and direct.

Seuweu Pajajaran's performance that evening was too short and intense in Sundanese context, yet for many in the audience, it may have been too long and too diffuse.

Admiral Dt Rangkayo Mulia nan Kuniang's performance, on the other hand, grabbed the audience in a different way. The introduction and explanation by his agent India Mahyuddin were a great help in bringing the audience into a corner of Minangkabau culture, vastly different from the world familiar to them.

Admiral sang and performed pieces of West Sumatran music with such energy and abandon that the audience almost held their breath.

He was a whole orchestra, accompanying his own vocal with saluang (bamboo flute), different percussion instruments including tapuak galembong (beat obtained by slapping the part of his own sarong between his legs). The songs ranged from tunes to cast love spells on young ladies, indigenous story-telling chants, to what would have been a lively, multi-source, spontaneous play of pantun (a kind of limerick) at a community party in Minangkabau. It was a riveting show.

Admiral's performance preceded one of a group from Persia, and they were both categorized as sufi music. It was very easy to understand how Islam blended smoothly into West Sumatran culture, when one listens to the chants, the deep laments, even the animist charm songs, sung and performed by Admiral. His voice seemed to reach out to the world beyond, just like a kasidah. It was intense and melismatic all at once.

There was no doubt Admiral's performance was very different from one-man shows usually found in western music tradition, yet it fit the western concept of a performance. It unhesitatingly drew the audience's attention to the show and kept it there, yet it was very different from the way a Minang community would have enjoyed it.

In Minangkabau he would have a whole physical orchestra to begin with, and a whole community as his audience who would participate and enjoy themselves all night long.

The festival has introduced Indonesian music from two completely different regions, each with its own characteristics and concept of serenity, spirituality and beauty. While it is impossible to transplant whole communities, samples, presented in a wonderfully professional manner, should serve as second bests.

And Australian audiences are thus able to enjoy fragments of Indonesian culture, which may be a beginning to more meaningful relations.