Gamelan

Gamelan

Sumarsam. · 1995

2 ideas

Buy on Amazon

1. Traditions as layered cultural encounters

   A classical art form that looks like one people's pure heritage can be the sediment of centuries of contact between many outside cultures. The Javanese bronze percussion ensemble, around since the twelfth century, carries Hindu, Islamic, European, Chinese and Malay influences in how it is organised and performed.

2. New faiths re-use old frameworks

   When a new belief system arrives, it often keeps the existing art forms and adjusts their meaning and setting to fit, instead of throwing them out. Javanese performing arts were first framed by ideas from India, then reshaped to suit Islamic mysticism. Later, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European performance styles reshaped them again.

Save ideas and give them a thumbs up or down in the app