SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis examines the transmission of Sundanese tembang Sunda Cianjuran song and jaipongan dance in Bandung, West Java. The author investigates exchanges of divergent forms of knowledge and power between teachers and students. As well as teaching performance skills, traditional performing arts teachers may impart blessings, philosophies, ‘spirit’ energies, and magical or sacred knowledge. The thesis also discusses changes in Sundanese performing arts training, comparing home-based traditional transmission with institutional formal pedagogy. This thesis aims 1) to chart micro-level power transactions between traditional teachers and their apprentices; 2) to investigate the transmission of Sundanese élmu knowledge as philosophy or spirit energy; 3) to consider the role of the Sundanese performing arts guru as provider of career orientation and philosophical life guidance; 4) to determine how local scholars represent tembang Sunda Cianjuran and jaipongan in times of growing religious piety; 5) to assess congruences and divergences between traditional and institutional teaching; 6) to examine how teachers negotiate contradictions between tradition, modernity, morality, piety, and gender in Sundanese female dance. The author explores local attitudes to knowledge and how these converge with political and spiritual power to enhance the guru’s authority. The thesis evaluates interpersonal transactions between guru and murid in traditional song apprenticeship, emphasising exchanges where expert women performers instruct female novices. The notion of intergenerational chains of transmission is investigated. This is connected to the guru’s mission to find a successor to perpetuate exclusive knowledge. This thesis makes a detailed analysis of methods used for teaching complex vocal ornamentations. Mimicry is examined along with the ways traditional guru employ transcription, terminology, and gesture. In educational institutions the author scrutinises the systematisation of tembang Sunda Cianjuran and jaipongan with new teaching methods. The research investigates controversies around ronggeng-style performance and how prominent jaipongan teachers both defend and remodel Sundanese female dance in response to increasing religious morality in today’s Post-Reform Era.