fbhjr | Night at the Gamelan

As of today there were almost real leaves on the trees.

I think they would be real, but we haven’t had any rain.
Instead we get clouds in the morning and sun the rest of the day.

Nice for people, not for plants.

This evening we picked up noodles and dumplings at that place where I am the noodleman, and headed to Holy Cross.

We ate our dinner in my wife’s office, then headed across campus for the Gamelan.
It is an Indonesian dance performance at the college/university where my wife works.
We’ve gone many times before:
http://www.fbhjr.livejournal.com/tag/gamelan

It was a nice evening to head across campus.

My read on that last one is it says something about bringing the altar of God to juvenile delinquents.

But, I don’t know much Latin.

We got there while they were still setting up, so got kicked out.
Then others went in. So we went back in.
Even though they were still setting up, we didn’t get kicked out.

The place filled up quickly.

My wife’s friend and her family joined us.

This year it started with an explanation of the musical instruments. I thought that was very cool.

Sadly, the professor didn’t tell the students doing the performance this would happen. So when she said “now play a bit for me” their response was “what?”

They moved on to the blessing given by the visiting director from Indonesia, Suasthi Bandem.

He blessed the whole group with holy water before starting.

He always plays with the performance and is clearly the leader. But, this year he seemed to be giving more visual clues as well as musical ones.

The dancers didn’t seem as well coordinated this year as previous times.
Usually there are one or two who are really good and the others watch them. This time that didn’t seem to be the case and there was some floundering.

Not as bad with the male dancers (with one woman dressed as a man), but there were less of them too.

The Barong dance also seemed to get a bit lost.

At one point the Barong dropped its fan. The director grabbed it and had it hidden behind his drum without missing a beat.

The Barong is really something. It is like a big dancing disco ball.

For the next dance, the director took the lead instrument himself.

The dancers again seemed to be floundering a bit.

Then, the director’s wife jumped up and joined them.

Everyone seemed happy about this.

She is very good and always a joy to watch dance.

With her leading, there was no more floundering.

She wasn’t listed as participating in that dance, so I think she must have jumped in to pull it all together. And she did.

I always love the intermission as the director explains about the history of the dance and some of its meaning.