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MULTIPLE IDENTITIES VIA THE GLOBALIZATION OF ART, MEDIA AND PERFORMANCE 131Creative Contemporary Asian Dance based on Traditional Techniques andSpirituality Fusing Lanna (Northern Thailand), Indonesia, and JapanRonnarong KhamphaIntroductionThis paper discusses the challenges of traditional dancein three parts: (1) Artists (2) Village, Palace, Street,Festivals, and (3) Workshops and Collaborations. 11. Artists. This section highlights two artists fromJapan and two artists from Indonesia to show a rangeof challenges and responses to globalization. In Kyoto,Japan, Tatsushige Udaka is a young traditional Nohtheater actor, subject to the strictest rules andrestrictions. Also in Kyoto, Heidi Durning, a half-Japanese, half-Swiss woman dancer, exemplifies thechallenges faced by a person from a multi-ethnicbackground in a traditional society.In Indonesia, Rianto and Mugiyono are performersbased in the city of Surakarta (widely called Solo) whopractice contemporary dance. Rianto is from a villagein Banyumas (between West and Central Java), whileMugiyono comes from a dalang (shadow-puppeteer)family in Central Java.2. Village, Palace, Street, Festivals explores the widerange of traditional dance being presented by groupsand institutions. From Japan, I introduce Awa Odori,a popular street festival held in mid-August each yearin the town of Tokushima on the southern island ofShikoku. The festival attracts hundreds of thousandsof people every year. I also explore Hayachine Kagura,an ancient form of masked shrine dance, believed to bethe ancestor of Noh drama, which is being quietlypreserved by villagers in the town of Tohno in Japan’sfar north. Finally, I discuss traveling troupes of socalled“downtown Kabuki” which play in smalltheaters in the poorer districts of Osaka and Tokyo. Incontrast to the very traditional “Grand Kabuki”, thesetroupes introduce informal elements such as popmusic, the wearing of blond wigs and otherinnovations.In Indonesia, Mangkunegaran Palace in Solo transmitsclassical Javanese techniques and spiritual valuesthrough the teaching of gamelan music and dance inthe palace’s historic pendopo performance halls.Ceremonies at Samwan Tiga, a Hindu temple in Bali,are also highly traditional, but are preserved byvillagers. As an example of an international arts eventof the sort that are greatly influencing contemporarydance around the region, I introduce “In the ArtsIsland 2011,” a dance and music festival held in July2011 in Bali and East Java.3. Workshops, Classes, and Collaborations. Thissection describes workshops in which I learned fromJapanese and Indonesian artists, as well as those inwhich I taught Lanna dance. Three collaborationswith local artists are discussed. In “Tatsushige toRonnarong” (Jan 2011, Kyoto), Noh artist Tatsushigeand I contrasted Noh drama with Lanna dance. In“Rianto to Ronnarong” (June 2011, Solo), Rianto andI conducted a similar event comparing Banyumas(Javanese dance) with Lanna dance. In a performancetitled Kembang Kapa (July 2011, Solo) Javanese singerPeni Candra Rini and I combined music andcontemporary dance.1. ArtistsTatsushige UdakaBorn in 1981, Tatsushige is the son of leading Nohactor Michishige Udaka of the Kongo School of NohTheater in Kyoto. Kongo is one of five traditionalschools descended from the actor Zeami of the 15 thcentury. The Kongo School is led today by a hereditaryiemoto (grand master). At age 29, Tatsushige is amember of the young generation of Noh performers.Noh is a form of masked theater that originated inshrine dances. Abstract, slow, and highly controlleddown to very small details, it includes three elements:mai (dance), hayashi (drums and flute), and utai(chanting). I studied mai and utai with Tatsushige andlearned to perform the dance section (shimai) of theplay Yuki (Snow).Tatsushige was first placed on a stage (where he says hepromptly fell asleep) at the age of three. Today he is aprofessional actor, comfortable with the Noh traditionand ready to step forward into the world ofglobalization. He is an expert on wearing the kimono,The Work of the 2010/2011 API Fellows
132 Panel 3the hakama (Japanese traditional pants) and the obi(sash) when he performs Noh, but he wears jeans and t-shirts otherwise. He engages with artists from manycountries and has taught Noh workshops in France,the United States and Korea. With his openpersonality, he attends dance shows of all varieties,including Western and contemporary performances.He hopes to reach out to people in society and toprovide easy access to the very specialized world ofNoh.However, as an actor of the Kongo School, Tatsushigeneeds to follow the guidelines of the iemoto. The strictrules of iemoto mean that Noh Theater has been passedon, almost unchanged, for centuries, making it one ofthe world’s oldest forms of continually performeddrama. On the other hand, this strength also meansthat it is difficult to break away from the rules.Among Tatsusighe’s attempts to do this arecollaborations with his wife, the contemporary dancerHaruna Udaka, and with artists from Slovenia in aperformance piece called Nohsono. Tatsusighe has said,“I want to go back to the origins of Noh (simple stage,lighting from the woods). It feels contemporary lookedat from today”. 2 For Tatsushige, the road toglobalization lies not in trying to bring in new forms,but in going deeper into the old forms and findingcontemporary value in them.Heidi S. DurningChoreographer and dancer Heidi was born in 1957 ofa Swiss father and Japanese mother. Based in Kyoto,she studied Nihon Buyo (traditional Japanese dance) inthe leading Fujima School, where she received theprofessional stage name “Fujima Kanso-o”. She alsoearned a master of fine arts from the University ofMichigan.Nihon Buyo dates back to Kabuki performances alongthe Kamo river in Kyoto in the early 1600s. Morerealistic and expressive than Noh, it developed withinKabuki theater during the Edo period (1600-1868). Itlater multiplied into many styles, including geishadance. Nihon Buyo features make-up rather thanmasks, elaborate stages and costumes, and flowing anddramatic gestures and rhythms.In her contemporary choreography, Heidi mixesNihon Buyo with contemporary dance. While freerthan Noh Theater, Nihon Buyo is still quite strict, sowhen Heidi performs anything that is not traditionalshe uses her own name “Heidi S. Durning”. When sheperforms or teaches Nihon Buyo she uses her certifiedFujima school name.“Being half Swiss and Japanese, sometimes it seems Iget away with being creative in this way, but I guess if Idid something very embarrassing the school would notlike it. I have not had too much trouble creating newthings. I guess I am also sort of known as a fusiondancer within that world… I feel I have been lucky totravel through these worlds. Sometimes I feel like aforeigner in the traditional Japanese world… It wouldbe nice to be more universally accepted in those wayssometimes”. 3Heidi calls her work Fusion Dance. Heidi’s “fusion” ispart of the centuries-long process of traditional danceadapting to outside influences. Being half Swiss andhalf Japanese has advantages and disadvantages. MostJapanese Nihon Buyo dancers are still focused onworking within the iemoto system and are not ready toventure into contemporary forms. That gives Heidicertain possibilities and openings. On the other hand,many Japanese people feel that she is not a “trueJapanese” and so it can be difficult for her to work inthe traditional formats, at the deeper levels.RiantoBorn in 1981 in a village near Banyumas, a small citybetween central and west Java, Rianto begantraditional Javanese dancing in high school andgraduated with a degree in dance from the Intitut SeniIndonesia at Surakarta (STSI) in 2004. From 2005 healso trained in Javanese court dance at MangkunegaranPalace. Married to a Japanese dancer, he is the founderand director of the Dewandaru Dance Company inTokyo. Rianto spends part of each year in Japan, andthe rest in Indonesia and conducting performances inother countries.Rianto believes that what we now see as “traditionaldance” was the “contemporary dance” of its time. Hedevelops his work by taking the techniques,choreography and ideas from traditional dance tocreate his own new work.In Rianto’s vision, the difference today betweentraditional and contemporary dance is that whiletraditional dance evolved over the years, contemporarydance is more focused on “concept”. It takes ideas fromThe Work of the 2010/2011 API Fellows
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CULTURE, POWER AND PRACTICES:THE GL
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viABOUT THE BOOKCULTURE, POWER AND
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viiiACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe API Coordin
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x(co-authored with Gunawan Wiradi,
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xiiSri Wahyuni is the director of t
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xivThe gap between rich and poor is
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xviand development mainly: Economy,
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xviiiIn closing, I would like to qu
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xxmovements to defend their rights,
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xxiicomplex relationships between f
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xxivIndonesian Academy of Social Sc
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MULTIPLE MODERNITIES: GLOBALIZATION
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OPENING REMARKS AND OVERVIEWDr. Rat
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247There is also a massive movement
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249need to be looked at, as globali
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251Appendix IWorkshop ScheduleThe T
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25313:00 - 15:00 Concluding PanelCh
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255THAILANDAroon Puritat, Artist an
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257RAPPORTEURSGarry MorrisonMarian
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Communication, Education and Public
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261have used tourism as a mechanism
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263Panel 4: Multiple Modernities vi
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265out how Asian women politicians
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267CONTACT DETAILS (as of March 201
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