Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY73orchestra concerts and ballet, which metropolitan areaslike Bangkok and Jakarta have also been promotingas emblems of modern urban life. The infusion of theelement of entertainment into traditional events such asweddings, anniversaries and even funerals has createdopportunities for artists. Many students and graduatesof arts academies and vocational high schools haveorganized performing groups like the sanggar 13 so thatthey could join the ranks of other wage earners in themodernizing social environment. As traditional artistsbecome part of the professional community, the artforms themselves have undergone drastic changes intheir aesthetic and intrinsic functional value. Longrituals in Bali have been shortened by their conversioninto public performances where they have been fittedinto tourism packages, including even cremationceremonies. 14 In the sanghiyang ritual of the kecak inBali, the very time of the spirit possession can practicallybe predicted in terms of minutes.Music as business and industryThe proliferation of music business programs inleading universities in Thailand is the result of newgovernment directives specifying that each program inhigher education must justify itself by ensuring that thegraduates will earn a living from these specializations.For this reason, music business as a study programor course content in tertiary schools has becomepart of the overall arts curriculum. The incipience ofresearch on developing and mass producing traditionalinstruments can now be observed, as in the effortsof Piyapan Santawisook, Assistant to the Presidentof Mahasarakham University, who has a privatelaboratory-factory just outside the university. Thethrust to produce highly professional individuals whocan contribute to the material progress of the nationcould reach some radical limits. Mass production ofphin (three-string tear-shaped lute from the Northeast)and wot (circular panpipe) can be found in a factory inKentong village in Khon Kaen province, being run bytwo young entrepreneurs, owner-artist-managers Decha,21, a recording artist, and his older sister PennapaChasanguan, 24, who is taking an MBA course to honeher business sense. In Thaksin University in SouthernThailand, a proposal has been submitted to transformthe Music Department into a “College of ProfessionalMusic” under the concept that all programs must leadtowards professional careers in music 15 (Dansakoon2006).At the Mahidol University College of Music, Dr. SukreeCharoensook has added studies in music technologyand music business to the curriculum. Because of itsnatural affinity with income generation and commercialentertainment, popular music in all its forms, includingthe study of molam xing, is a principal feature of themusic business curricula. Mahidol University also hasthe most financially successful ventures in the field ofmusic education. It operates extension schools of musiccalled “Music Campuses for the General Public” 16situated in three different shopping centers, each branchcatering to the different middle-income brackets thatpatronize these malls. 17Vocational schoolsParallel to the proliferation of programs and courses inmusic business in Thailand is the restructuring of thearts high schools in Indonesia into vocational trainingcenters under the new political dispensation andeducational reform. From their status as arts academies,arts high schools have been reformatted and renamedSekolah Menengga Kejuruan Indonesia (SMKI), 18with a total of eight such centers all over the country.Quoting from the information sheet of SMKI inBantul, Yogyakarta, the State Performing Arts “teachesstudents to have abilities and skills in performing artsrequired by entertainment and art industry.” 19 Oneof the social roles of the vocational schools is to findor identify potential employment for their graduatesand to forge linkages with commercial establishments.The highly pro-active SMKI in Yogyakarta lists itslinkages with Hotel Jayakarta and Hotel Mutiaraand dance sanggars (community-based performinggroups) such as PLT Bagong Kussdihardja, Didik NiniThowok Entertainment, as well as the Radio RepublikIndonesia, Radio Swasta di DIY, and Televisi RepublikIndonesia.The arts have also always been considered an integralprogram for schools for the disabled, especially theblind. In Chiang Mai, the Northern School for theBlind of Her Royal Highness the Queen’s Patronagehas an active music program. 20 However, the musicprogram is more of an elective rather than a regularpart of the general curriculum. In North Sumatra, theVocational School Center for the Blind (Yapentra) inTanjung Morawa recently started music instructionon Batak music. Most of the instruction in music iscentered on areas that can be useful for earning a livingin the entertainment industry: drums, guitar, violin,trumpet and piano. These are offered together withother skills such as carpentry and massage, which arecompulsory for all visually impaired students.The advent of new communication media and thecommodification of artistic productions as modernAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows