Greetings to all,

This is an update of London’s Sekar Gedhogan Gamelan Orchestra's community building activities in London, raising funds for the Yogyakarta 27 May 2006 earthquake victims.

Quite a crowd appeared on the cobblestones in front of Unit 92, Stables Market, Camden, for the gamelan music, with dance and Tibetan singing bowls and cross denominational chanting, which began at 8pm and continued until 3am.

New faces seemed to be coming out of the woodwork to join our community building for London. Wahyudi from Bandung, Java, came and played us the Sunda sulings perfectly. (He also plays the Sunda silat trumpet and, with luck, we will locate one to make the kembangan sessions even more authentic!) Nyoman had a repertoire of old Kawi mantrams and blessings from his Balinese tradition. At the height of our performance, the Sekar Gedhogan Community Gamelan Orchestra performance that night was a tightly but freely harmonized ensemble of kendangs, rebanas, bangbungs (Yogyakarta traditional big bamboo didgeridoo-like instrument), sarons, gongs, sulings and vocals. Our sponsoring shop, Kalimantan Creations, has just brought in a set of Jawa gongs. Not the expensive bronze ones, but steel and iron village gongs. The largest, the gong suwuk, is 1.5m in diameter and its deep, resonating boom is a sensation as much as a sound. Doing kembangan, a dance-like martial art of Southeast Asia, were Debbie and Jules, two young mums from a Harimau Minang silat school, and our own Bram Prijosusilo. John, who last year displayed his silat skills during a great session of ulin nampel (sticking play) with Bram, wanted to join in kembangan but was not sure how.

Here is some advice from Bram directed at practitioners of silat (though most of it applies to gamelan performers as well): Think of kembangan as sticky hands in which your partner is the music--especially the drums. One beauty of silat is that one jurus, or form, can make a performance; each jurus, in itself, projects beauty and energy. Think of kembangan as a hybrid of disco, in which any Mr Blobby can waddle his arse, and yoga, in which particular forms are designed to benefit the practitioner. With just one, two, or three jurus, you can write your own poetry--and your poetry will be fit for a royal audience!

In both gamelan and kembangan, the performance plays a vital role in community building. The atmosphere of ceremony and thanksgiving thickens every time we do our summer Sunday evening gamelan-and-movement get-togethers.

Thank you to all who supported last Sunday’s event. Please remember that this Sunday, 25 June 2006, at 7pm will be our first fund raising ceremony, with all monies collected going directly to aid Bicak and Ngunut, two hamlets hit hard by the Yogyakarta earthquake and with which we have direct contact (see www.kalimantancreations.co.uk/events/2006summer.html for more details). Please arrive early, watch, listen, and, if you like, join us in music, song, and dance!

Warmest blessings,

Sekar Gedhogan