What is behind the spread and popularity of gamelan performance outside Indonesia? This dissertation attempts to answer this question through considering the development of one type of gamelan, Central Javanese, in one region (Britain). The answer involves locating gamelan perfo…
The recent emergence of girls' and mixed-gender gamelan ensembles in Bali within a historically male-dominated field of performance heralds a fundamental shift in how people think about gender roles, and in how children learn "appropriate" gender behavior through music education…
This dissertation investigates the phenomenon of inculturation, with its theoretical, political and sociological implications, in Indonesian Christian music, with a focus on central Java and the island of Flores. Inculturation, a theory formed by 20th century Catholic thinkers, …
This dissertation is about the cultural work that musicians and dancers do through gendered dance performance to produce place-specific senses of identity. Focusing on performers—musicians and dancers--in Malang, a provincial section in the region of east Java, Indonesia, I argu…
This master's thesis project explores the centuries-old Indonesian musical genre gamelan as it exists now in Los Angeles, primarily through the ensemble Gamelan Burat Wangi. I present it as a multimedia package online at ehough.ascjweb.org/gamelan. Burat Wangi, founded in 1972 a…
Three pieces of music: Temper Temper Time, Shepard, and Faux-Java Blues form a set that exploits experimental applications of unusual musical features: 5/4 tempo relationships and quintuple divisions; tempo spirals and expanded rock harmony and voice leading; and Indonesian/West…
This thesis is a study of the history and theory of Javanese music, especially gamelan of the courts of Central Java. The study is based on the premise that the continuous exposure of the Javanese to foreign cultures resulted in rich variants in the contexts and contents of Java…
The solo female singer, pesindhen, who performs with the Central Javanese gamelan ensemble, occupies a particularly ambivalent position in Javanese society. She exists uneasily in the gap between the respectable, dispassionate ideal of Javanese womanhood and the enticing, raptur…