Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

76 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYconscious strategy of sustaining tradition or practiced aspart of a larger socio-cultural template in the course ofhuman life in Southeast Asia. Looking at the larger issueof transmission, one may argue a theory of differencebetween interventional acculturation and evolutionaryenculturation with reference to the cultural historyof Southeast Asian peoples in the last 500 years. Inthis regard, the present study offers a much moreopen-ended view not only of the highly complextransformative nature of cultural transmission, but alsothe multi-dimensionality of the entire phenomenon inwhich individuals and institutions interact with extraterritorialinfluences. From one perspective, such aspectsas belief systems and modes of worship, gender, familyorganization, the community and political governancehave emerged in the course of the present inquiry asboth agents of change and institutional safeguardsin sustaining and preserving the essentialities of theexpressive traditions.From another standpoint, the economic agencies ofthe times have brought about a dramatic shift in thevaluation as well as the utilization of the artistic productvis-à-vis the new institutions of learning that have nowbeen tasked with developing a new resource, capableof converting an intangible patrimony to materiallyprofitable productions. In this regard, human resources,artists and culture bearers, as well as modern institutionsof learning, become the focal point as the ultimaterepository of power and the main instrument by whichcanons of transmission and learning may be ideated,formulated, transformed and practiced.Institutional and formal modes of transmission andlearning are predictably going to be the way of thefuture. Change, however, exacts sacrifices and evenloss, as well as gains and profits on the part of the largerdomain of tradition. It shall, therefore, depend on theartists themselves to effect a balance between what is lostand what is gained and accordingly exercise their powerand imagination in using the institutional machineriesto determine the parameters of change through whichand by which they can exercise the license to create andinnovate, in the process of sustaining, perpetuating andenhancing tradition.NOTES1Data were gathered from study visits to the main regionsof Thailand (North, Northeast, Central and South) andthe major provinces of Indonesia (Jakarta, West Java(Bandung), North Sumatra, Central Java (Solo andYogyakarta) and Bali); meetings were held with more thana hundred principal consultants and visits were made tomore than 50 institutions and communities during thefour and a half months of field study.2In the formalization of teaching and learning traditional artsand culture, three types of institutions of higher learningproviding professional arts education have evolved: 1) thearts institute; 2) the teacher training institution and/oruniversity; and 3) the academic university.3Many of these folk rituals have also become spectator events,performed at fairs and other tourist and commercialvenues.4 Notation came into the learning process in the musicalcultures of both Indonesia and Thailand in the late 19thand early 20th centuries, initially introduced and inducedby Western missionaries and pioneering scholars whoseinterest ranged from purely historical documentationto scholarly study and the cultural preservation of localmusical repertoires (see Miller 1992, Seelig 1932, Sontong1973, Lenasawat 1992, Diya 2006).5 Some institutions have found faster solutions to thisproblem by awarding honorary degrees, such as anhonorary baccalaureate degree, as in the case of pi-nora(double-reed instrument used in nora) master Kuan Yokby the Rajabhat University in Songkhla. The RajabhatUniversity in Chiang Mai has also awarded DamrongChaipet, 74, a master drum artist and drum maker fromBan To village, an honorary master’s degree, as was UnlanHongton, a master artist in sung (4-string rounded boxlute from Northern Thailand), pi (free-reed bamboo pipe)and so (vocal repartee from Northern Thailand) from thevillage of Chiang Dao.6Many of these scholars have studied abroad such as I MdeBandem, Endo Suanda, Sumaryono, Waridi, SantosaSowerlan, Bambang Sunarto, among others. See Sunarto2007 as an illustration of scientific writing.7See Sriwilai 1994.8There is no exact equivalent in the Western music system.The ghending is in the form of a basic melodic formula ora song that serves as the nuclear material for performancesby a gamelan ensemble.9Interview with Sumaryono conducted on 3 May 2007 inYogyakarta.10 In spite of major efforts such as festivals of modern art(including the hosting of the 1999 Asian ComposersLeague Festival in Solo and Yogyakarta) to reconcileAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows