In the course of a month (November 20 to December 20, 2016) during my most recent visit to Yogyakarta, no fewer than eleven of the gamelans profiled earlier on this site[1] were sounded from six locations throughout the palace[2] as part of fifty-five events sponsored by the Kraton Yogyakarta. What follows in this section of the site is my attempt to explicate the contribution palace gamelans make to the identity and operations of the institution that they serve, using the flurry of palace-sponsored events I witnessed in 2016 to illustrate my propositions.
I propose that all palace-organized events, be they of a private or public nature and whether or not they involve the performing arts, be understood as socially-constructed performances of statecraft realized by the Kraton Yogyakarta. The traditional Javanese concepts of kingship and statecraft that were practiced when pangeran Mangkubumi became the first Sultan of Yogyakarta in 1755 were rooted in an Indic-Indonesian model of worldly and cosmological order and harmony. Geertz (1980) argues that at the core of these concepts is a “doctrine of the exemplary center,” which dictates that the perfection of the godly macrocosm should be replicated in the mundane microcosm. The primary responsibility of the king and his court, according to Geertz, was to use state wealth and resources as devices for creating highly elaborated and refined ceremonies and spectacles. Such ritual was generated not to manufacture the perception of state power, but to serve as a paragon of the order and harmony of the macrocosm. So central was the expressive nature of the exemplary center of the kingdom (the ruler’s court and capital) that the “ . . . court shape[d] the world around it into at least a rough approximation of its own excellence.”[3] Royal courts emphasizing spectacle, ceremony, and public display of their own perceived superiority are what Geertz calls “theatre states.” I suggest that the Kraton Yogyakarta be understood as a theatre state, but one which has, in the course of its history, been brought into relationships with other powerful paradigms of worldly order to which it has needed to respond.[4]
Already by the middle of the 18th century when the First Sultan came to power, the Indic model of kingship and statecraft had evolved to accommodate the introduction of Islam to and the presence of exploitive European economic enterprise in Central Java, both forces starting to significantly impact the region around the turn of the 16th century.[5] Dutch colonial rule commenced at the beginning of the 19th century, and colonial authorities recognized the efficacy of ruling through traditional rulers and institutions by allowing them to maintain their theatre states while being financially dependent on and subservient to the colonial government. By the middle of the twentieth century the Sultanate of Yogyakarta had become absorbed into the newly established sovereign nation of Indonesia as a “special area” (“Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta”). This new relationship between “old authority” and “new authority” once again dramatically changed the playing field for the institution of Javanese kingship,[6] but perhaps not as profoundly as the most recent outside force to inundate Yogyakarta–globalization.[7] Clearly, the social, economic, and governance landscape of Yogyakarta in the early 21st century is not that of the late Hindu-Javanese period when the Indic model of kingship and statecraft was operative. But I would suggest that the essence of the idea of a king/sultan and his court serving as the exemplary center of a theatre state has persisted in Central Java up to the present day and informs how an institution such as the Kraton Yogyakarta attempts to relate to the cultural landscape of its contemporary reality. As in the distant past, elaborate displays of expressive culture play an important—perhaps, now, even a more central—role in the perception of the king and the palace as an exemplary center of Javanese culture in contemporary Yogyakarta.
The events described and interpreted below will be treated as institutional performances. By “institutional performance” I mean any presentation by an institution–the Kraton Yogyakarta in this case–to an audience (not always the same one) of an idealized representation of its own raison d’être—serving as an exemplary center and “providing a model, a paragon, a faultless image of civilized existence.”[8] These “institutional performances” include the presentation of conventional artistic expressions—concert music, music-accompanied dance and/or dance or puppet theatre—as part of the larger performative gesture and purpose of an event. My interpretations of them take into consideration: the timing of the event; its location in the symbolic layout of the palace; the gamelans utilized and who performed on them; the artistic media and other content integrated into the event; and the constituency or constituencies that comprised the “audience” of the event. When considered collectively and in relation to one another as a web of meaning-laden relationships, these key parameters of an event help clarify its purpose and the function it serves in the workings of the Kraton Yogyakarta.
The events I describe and analyze from my 2016 encounter with palace life are divided into two groups each of which, in my reading, reveals how the Kraton Yogyakarta engages with different contemporary audiences about its relevancy as an institution of traditional Javanese kingship. One of these groups of events, called here “intra-negara“, seems to me to be focused upon a segment of the Javanese population of the Yogyakarta region that still views, even if in a diluted manner, the palace as the exemplary center of a negara. The second grouping of events, referred to as “extra-negara“, engages a more diverse audience of individuals comprised of less traditional-oriented Javanese, non-Javanese Indonesians, and international tourists to whom the palace packages and presents itself as the source and caretaker of a cultural treasure worthy of admiration.
It is through the analyses presented here that I make my case for palace gamelans as “actors with agency” operating within networks of relationships both within the Kraton Yogyakarta and between it and the outside contemporary world in which it is situated. The title of this section of the site alludes to the agency I seek to unveil. By metaphorically calling gamelans “servants” I am framing them as actors in some larger web of relationships–in this case, with the practice of Javanese kingship past and present. The adjectival modifier “sound” is intentionally chosen to be read two ways: firstly as an acknowledgement of the music-producing functionality of these objects; and secondly as a character assessment of palace gamelans as agents–they are, I propose, competent, valid, steadfast, and reliable servants of Javanese kingship as practiced by the Kraton Yogyakarta.
Frequent references will be made in the analyses to follow to aspects of Javanese cultural practices. Unless you are a student of Javanese culture, these references will be unfamiliar yet essential to an understanding of the agency of gamelans in the cultural geography of the Kraton Yogyakarta. Rather than interspersing the texts of the analyses with lengthy digressions that provide necessary background information on cultural practices and beliefs, I instead direct you to a series of essays in the Appendices section of the website. There you will find focused presentations on isolated facets of Javanese culture that will enhance your understanding of the analyses.
