Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T06:59:19.360Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Constructing Gender in Sundanese Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Sean Williams
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The 35 million Sundanese of West Java are known in Indonesia for their sense of humor, the conservatism of their Muslim religious practices, the sadness of their music, and their relatively relaxed codes of behavior that allow for raucous laughter, broad physicality in musical performance, and strong innuendo in song lyrics (Williams 1993). The Sundanese also have well-established performing arts specific to the area, as well as a specific set of gender-based conventions in organizing their living arrangements. Although the links between gender, spirituality, home life, humor, and music may not seem readily apparent, the bridges between them become clearly demarcated through an examination of the ways in which physical and musical domains are divided along gender boundaries. In this article I examine some of the multiple domains of Sundanese men and women, not only within the boundaries of their homes but also on performing stages and within musical repertoires, revealing the tensions between the sexes and highlighting the areas in which men and women can meet and communicate both socially and musically.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 30 , 1998 , pp. 74 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by the International Council for Traditional Music

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Foley, Kathy 1979 The Sundanese Wayang Golék: the Rod Puppet Theater of West Java. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawai'i.Google Scholar
Hidding, K.A.H. 1929 Nyi Pohatji Sangjang Sri. Leiden: Dubbledeman. [Ph.D. dissertation, University of Leiden.] Keeler, Ward 1993 “Symbolic Dimensions of the Javanese House.” Paper presented for the panel titled “Sacred Geography and Social Space in Indonesia,” at the Annual Meetings of the Association for Asian Studies, March 23–25.Google Scholar
Hidding, K.A.H. 1990 “Speaking of Gender in Java.” In Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia, ed. Atkinson, Jane Monnig and Errington, Shelly, 128–152. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lev, Daniel S. 1996 “On the Other Hand?” In Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia, ed. Sears, Laurie Jo, 191–203. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepherd, John 1993 “Difference and Power.” In Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed. Solie, Ruth A., 46–65. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tiwon, Sylvia 1996 “Models and Maniacs: Articulating the Feminine in Indonesia.” In Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia, ed. Sears, Laurie Jo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Waterson, Roxana 1990 The Living House: an Anthropology of Architecture in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weintraub, Andrew 1997 Constructing the Popular: Superstars, Performance, and Cultural Authority in Sundanese Wayang Golek Purwa of West Java, Indonesia. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley.Google Scholar
Wessing, Robert 1978 Cosmology and Social Behavior in a West Javanese Settlement. Papers in International Studies Southeast Asia Series, no. 47. Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Program.Google Scholar
Wessing, Robert 1997 “Constituting the World in the Sundanese House.” Paper presented at the international workshop on “Transformations of Houses and Settlements in Western Indonesia: Changing Values and Meanings of Built Forms in History and in the Process of Modernization.” Leiden 18–21 June 1997.Google Scholar
Williams, Sean 1989 “Current Developments in Sundanese Popular Music.” Asian Music 21(1):105–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Sean 1990 The Urbanization of Tembang Sunda, an Aristocratic Musical Genre of West Java, Indonesia. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington.Google Scholar
Williams, Sean 1993 “Our Laughter Balances Our Tears: Humor in Sundanese Arts.” Balungan 5(2):11–14.Google Scholar
Zanten, Wim Van 1989 Sundanese music in the Cianjuran style; Anthropological and Musicological Aspects of Tembang Sunda [with cassette tape 90]. Dordrecht/Providence-USA: Foris. [KITLV Verhandelingen 140.]Google Scholar