Guest Lecture Series

Since 2000, Dewa Alit (b. 1973) of Pengosekan, Bali, has earned appreciation at home and internationally as the composer of consistently demanding, exploratory and rigorously designed music.

Part 1. Wayne Vitale speaks on “Geregel” (2000) which used the newly-popular seven-tone gamelan semaradana to explore rhythms and tonalities unknown in Balinese music till then.

Since 2000, Dewa Alit (b. 1973) of Pengosekan, Bali, has earned appreciation at home and internationally as the composer of consistently demanding, exploratory and rigorously designed music.

Part 2. Pete Steele discusses “Caru Wara” (2006) for the standard gamelan gong kebyar, which took Balinese rhythm to a still-higher level.

Since 2000, Dewa Alit (b. 1973) of Pengosekan, Bali, has earned appreciation at home and internationally as the composer of consistently demanding, exploratory and rigorously designed music.

Part #3 Oscar Smith will discuss the design and tuning of Alit’s own gamelan Salukat, and his first major work for it, the polymetric and modally-extended “Genetik” (2012).

Since 2000, Dewa Alit (b. 1973) of Pengosekan, Bali, has earned appreciation at home and internationally as the composer of consistently demanding, exploratory and rigorously designed music.

Part #4 To close this 45 part series Michael Tenzer discusses “Ngejuk Memedi” (2016) which features whole new Balinese sound worlds and ingenious structures.

In this talk Andy McGraw describes his research on temporality in Balinese gamelan music.

Indonesian artist scholars, Ayu Eka and Putu Tangkas discusses the process of creating their latest collaborative dance piece for Balinese gamelan, Tari Kreasi “Laku.” In doing so, highlighting the concepts of the piece as they pertain to social mobility in Colorado and Bali.

A frank discussion about the role that music and dance studios (sanggar) can play in creating environment friendly alternatives to single-use plastic in everyday life in Bali, particularly at ceremonies, practices and performances. With the aim of inspiring others, Mekar Bhuana Co-founders, Vaughan Hatch and Putu Evie will present the solutions they have come up with and how they apply these within their own family as well as teams of musicians and dancers.

In this talk Lisa shares research on musical transmission, performance practice, and recent developments in Balinese wayang (shadow puppet theater) and gender wayang across several generations. Her elderly teachers in the 1980s and 90s shared with me memories of zaman/jaman dulu (a concept of a rich, bygone past) from the early 20th Century as they saw the wayang repertoire of their teacher’s time diminishing.