Gamelan Çudamani: Bamboo to Bronze November 7, 2010

Musicians and dancers in Bali continue to practice and maintain both enduring traditions as well as vibrant creative innovations. Bamboo to Bronze presents the entire arch of these performing genres. Rooted in ceremony and ritual, early genres in Bali took place in both the village temples and the courts of Balinese kings. Village practices ensure deep connections to the spirit world. Temple ceremonies are aligned to the lunar calendar, the harvest cycle and the world of the gods and spirits. In the past villagers may only have bamboo gamelan instruments, while the courts perfected the high art of metallurgy, building magnificent gamelan ensembles from bronze. It is this court patronage that supported the development of dancers and musicians we now associate with Balinese Gamelan music and dance. Çudamani maintains and continues to develop repertoire that spans an enormous range of Balinese music and dance genres. Bamboo to Bronze considers the Balinese contemporary reality by presenting a program that includes the intimate and poetic sounds of a small village as well as the virtuosic, dynamic and technically dazzling sound of the brilliant seven-toned Gamelan Semarandana. Both exist alongside the increasingly complex and sophisticated world of Bali. In Bamboo to Bronze, Çudamani explores their own artistic history working constantly to revive and revitalize Bali’s ancient forms in a way that acknowledges innovation as the most powerful tool of preservation.

Official Website: http://www.cudamani.org/