When I was conducting doctoral fieldwork on contemporary music in Indonesia between 2001-2004 I was encouraged by friends in Bali to contact the Balinese composer I Wayan Sadra, then faculty at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Surakarta, Java. Sadra was a mentor to musical misfits of all kinds, inviting many young musicians to participate in his Sono Seni experimental musical group which for a decade represented the leading edge of musical innovation on the island. When I arrived in town Sadra suggested that the best way for me to learn about musical innovation in Indonesia would be for me to join his group and perform and co-compose alongside him and his young musicians. Shortly before I joined, a young singer from a fishing village some six hours away had just arrived, looking for opportunities for artistic expression that were disallowed for women within the constraints of Javanese traditional music. This was a nineteen-year-old Peni Candra Rini and she had arrived, it seemed, with a completely original voice and style, despite being trained narrowly within her tradition. Since that time, she has grown considerably as a performer, composer, and collaborator becoming one of Indonesia’s leading cultural diplomats.
On Belief and Sustainability
During our rehearsal breaks in the Sono Seni ensemble, Peni often retold stories of living on the Southern shore in her fishing village, without electricity, and falling asleep as her father retold legends about the goddess of the southern sea (Rara Kidul) and of humans’ obligations to her—expressed through offerings—and their fear of her wrath. To me, these were colorful stories of a very different childhood from my own. To me, these stories represented a kind of pre-modern superstition that I was fundamentally suspicious of. I did not understand their practical utility until much later.
When studying in the Balinese village of Tenganan in 2010 one of my music teachers was asked by the village council to oversee a disciplinary hearing for a villager accused of a serious transgression: cutting down a tree in the neighboring jungle. The teacher took down the village constitution from its sacred alter and sung the passages outlining the wide variety of punishments for abusing the local environment. Tenganan is located in a valley surrounded by mountains on three sides. The mountain jungle holds back the rains that would otherwise wash the village into the sea. Tenganan’s ceremonial practices require a long, complicated list of offerings to be presented each month in the temple: a particular fruit for this God, a mountain flower for that God, etc. The ceremonial recipes go on and on. If the offerings are not complete—if the environment cannot provide the necessary ingredients desired by the Gods—the Gods express their anger through environmental catastrophes. As my teacher explained it to me: “you see, our ancestors knew what they were doing; these ceremonies and beliefs aren’t an accident. They represent a deep understanding of sustainability. Following the practices functions to protect your home, whether or not you believe in the Gods.”
Peni Candra Rini’s Jiwa Kala reminds us of how belief and communal ceremonial action has been a mode of transferring knowledge about sustainability over millennia.
-Where you gonna run when the world is on fire? (American spiritual)
-No where to run to, no where to hide. (Martha Reeves and the Vandellas)