Recollecting Resonances: Indonesian-Dutch Musical Encounters ed. by Bart Barendregt and Els Bogaerts (review)

While the title made me think that theatre would only be tangential to this collection, reading reversed this assumption and reminded me that the history of dance, music, and theatre are never far divided in Indonesian material. This is a well-edited collection that has much to offer those interested in the cross-cultural connections in theatre between the Dutch and Indonesians, and expands to a global reach as we learn of political theatre in Suriname by performers of Javanese descent in the 1970s. Each offering is solidly researched. The author’s introduction provides a broad overview of intercultural borrowings. Then Liesbeth Ouwehand takes a visual culture approach in “Photographic Representation of the Performing Indonesian,” giving background on the photos by Isaac Groneman of Yogyakarta court dance in 1888 and A. W. Niewenhuis of Dayak performers in Kalimantan in 1900, followed by discussion of a pasar malam (fair) images from Surabaya in 1905–1906, where Balinese gandrung (social dance), Javanese wayang wong (dance-drama), and other arts were presented. Sumarsam contributes an excellent essay titled “Past and Present Issues of Javanese-European Musical Hybridity: Gending Mares and other Hybrid Genres,” showing how European marching band music (itself inspired by Ottoman martial music) became an influence for the piece that accompanies the entrance of dancers in “Bedhaya Semang” (classical female court dance) of the Yogyakarta palace.

R. Franki S. Notosudirdjo’s essay, “Musical Modernism in the Twentieth Century,” chronicles the intertwining of nationalism and musical modernism in the work of Ki Hadjar Dewantaro in developing a new nationalist music using Western notation. He discusses R. M. Soerjo Poetro, who co-founded with Ki Hadjar Dewantara the Taman Siswa educational movement that combined nationalist feeling and cultural development in its teaching agenda. Soerjo Poetro taught, among others, Tjokrowasito, who became an important guru of many in the international gamelan movement of the 1970s–1980s. Franki also tells of the significant Westerners who participated in musical circles, such as Fred Belloni (b. 1891), Constant van der Wall (b. 1861), and Paul Seelig. The intercultural process has been long and enduring.

Henk Mak van Dijk discusses in detail the work of “Constant van der Wall, a European-Javanese Composer,” noting his use of gamelan, pantun verse structure, kroncong (guitar-like ensemble popular music), and the reception of van der Wall’s Attima: Episode in the Life of the Javanese People (1903), the “first and only Dutch opera prior to 1945 to use gamelan motifs and to include Javanese dances” (p. 166).

The romantic opera, which had success in the Netherlands and France, tells of a dancer (Attima) engaged to a rebab (bowed lute) player (Kartono), but she falls in love with a European officer (Armand). The performance included the dancing skill of Javanese dancer Jodjana. The essay details various versions of the opera, the most recent in 2008.

Madelon Djajainengrat and Clara Brinkgreve discuss the friendship between Prince Mangunegoro VII and the ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst. The latter, with the prince’s support, was named the colonial government musicologist. Kunst in time of course would influence Bernard IJzerdraat, Mantle Hood, and others who moved forward musical, dance, and theatre studies, the former in Indonesia and the latter in the United States. Wim van Zanten discusses the friendship of Kunst and the Sundanese music teacher–scholar Machjar Kusumadinata (1902–1960), which resulted in canonization of Kusu-madinata’s theories in the academy. While failing to explain actual musical practice, these ideas remain to the present in the teaching of music in West Java. Van Zantan argues that a new musical theory needs to be developed to fit actual practices.

Matthew Isaac Cohen (“Indonesian Performing Arts in the Netherlands 1913–1944”) shares research on music, dance, and theatre interactions, showing a lively world where Indonesian, Western, and mixed-race artists conducted multi-arts performances, including music, dance, puppets, and film. They made recordings and public performances. Cohen gives outlines of dramas by authors like Jan...