Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Musical Politics in Central Java (Or How Not to Listen to a Javanese Gamelan)

1987; Volume: 44; Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3351219

2164-8654

John Pemberton,

Music History and Culture

Part of the peculiar attraction that music holds for Javanese is exposed in a standard gag performed by local comedy groups. Alone on stage, a domestic servant flourishing a long feather-duster is casually at work.1 Without warning, an offstage stereo blasts him with disco music. It evidently sounds good, irresistibly good, since the feather-duster, and then the arm and body attached to it, immediately begin to twitch in time to the music. The disco-ed domestic turns out to be a fantastic dancer, gracefully defying gravity and household authority at the same time. The catch, however, comes somewhere in mid-air between the living room sofa and Donna Summer's third verse, when the recorded music suddenly cuts off and leaves the inspired servant posed as a perfect fool. It's that spoiled kid and his damn stereo, the embarrassed servant explains to the audience, tricked me this time, but it won't happen again. Indeed, it might not have had disco resumed. But the stereo sound that replaces the disco is dangdut, Indonesia's immensely popular musical answer to Indian pop. And the young female singer is Elvie Sukaesih, whose hips--acting entirely on their own--allegedly touched off mass riots during the 1982 election campaigns.2 Completely forgetting his feather-duster, the servant now exhibits his extraordinary talents as a solo dangdut dancer, only to be exposed again, duped once more by that brat at the stereo controls offstage. Before the disconcerted dangduter has time for the slightest wince of protest, however, there emerges the final attraction in this escalating series of popular musical powers: the sounds of the West Javanese up-tempo gamelan dance craze called faxpoangan.3 Now