Listening to an Earlier Java: Aesthetics, Gender, and the Music of Wayang in Central Java

In "old-style" Central Javanese wayang, still known to many shadow-puppet performers and musicians in Java today, the male dhalang and his primary accompanist, usually a female gender player, are gendered embodiments of a Javanese aesthetic that has its origins in early Java. Analysis of the musical tradition known as "female style" grimingan―melodies played on the gender as the puppeteer sings, narrates or describes a scene―makes it possible to "listen back" to and reconstruct aesthetics for Javanese performance that can be felt in literary sources as early as the 12th century and that has endured into the present through cultural and political upheaval and globalised change during the colonial and postcolonial periods. Ethnomusicologist Sarah Weiss, herself a gamelan musician who has directed ensembles in Australia and the United States over many years, examines for the first time the musical practices, concepts, stories, changing historical circumstances, and myths that have shaped "female-style" gender playing into a uniquely significant mode of artistic practice.
This study is the first large-scale treatment of gender issues in Indonesian music. Integrating the analysis of gender and music with that of aesthetics, this study of the musical synergy between the puppeteer and his female accompanist describes the ways in which shifting gender constructions have helped to shape and change Central Javanese music and theatre performance practice while throwing new light on the history of Javanese gender relations and culture, as well as on the aesthetics of Central Javanese shadow-puppet theatre.
PLEASE NOTE that the accompanying CD-ROM is no longer available due to the incompatibility with current file formats.

Sarah Weiss is Associate Professor of Music at Yale University. Working primarily in Asian performing arts, Weiss has addressed issues of gender, aesthetics, postcoloniality, and hybridity in her writing and teaching. She is director of the Yale Javanese ensemble, Gamelan Suprabanggo (www.yale.edu/seas/yalegamelan), Council Member for Southeast Asia Studies and South Asian Studies at Yale, and member of the Teagle Foundation's National Forum for the Future of Liberal Education.