In what appears to me to be a sincere effort on the part of the Kraton to educate domestic and international tourists about its role in perpetuating and preserving traditional Javanese culture, the institution has found architecture, museums, and performances to be the most effective mediums through which to communicate with their non-traditional audiences. Palace gamelans operate in two of these domains—museum displays of material culture, and as participants in live presentations of court performing arts that are intended to enliven the encounter experience of tourists with Javanese court culture.
As mentioned in the introduction to this section of the website, it has been possible for tourists to tour the palace and, to some extent, experience court performing arts during their tour since at least 1953. Over the entire forty-five-year period since my first visit to the Kraton Yogyakarta in 1973 I have been able to observe palace strategies for managing this component of the touristic encounter experience. Because palace tours focus primarily on palace architecture and material culture, I will briefly describe these two facets of the touristic encounter before examining how palace performing arts are integrated into the encounter experience.
Architecture
For sixty-some years, encounters between tourists and the Kraton have been mediated by abdidalem and volunteer tour guides, who between them can present tours in an impressive array of European and Asian languages. The precise content of a palace tour has changed over time, most likely in response to changing palace perceptions of what their visitors are seeking in their encounter experience. The place of architecture in the encounter experience has probably changed the least over time. In the early decades of tourism, tours would run from Pagelaran all the way south to the Magangan courtyard, basically following the North-South Ceremonial Axis of the palace (see The Spatial Dimension of Kingship appendix). In recent decades, this earlier route has been broken into two separate tours—the Pagelaran/Sitihinggil tour and the much more heavily subscribed Karaton Ngayogyakarta tour (Srimenganti, Pelataran Kedhaton, and Kasatriyan areas). Informational emphasis provided by the tour guides has always centered on the architectural design of the palace and the “original” functions and symbolism of its buildings, courtyards, and gates in the grand logic of “traditional” palace life (although the functions of many palace structures today are different from their earlier ones), and on any color, numerical, or figural symbolism worked into their design or surface decoration.[1]
Material Culture Museums
Between 1992 and 2005 there was a flowering of museum development in the palace. Although there were some museum-like displays found in the palace prior to this period–the royal carriage collection, a portrait gallery in the Kasatriyan compound, archaic gamelans in Bangsal Srimenganti,[2] and several dioramas in the Pagelaran/Sitihinggil area)[3]–a more updated approach to presenting palace history and culture through its material culture came to be employed during this period. In 1992 the Museum Hamengku Buwana IX opened in a previously underutilized area of the Kedhaton just south and west of Kasatriyan.[4] In it is displayed hundreds of objects of material culture once used by the Sultan. Nearby, in 2005, a museum dedicated to the art and craft of bathik in the palace context was opened. In the interval between these two openings and in the physical space between them, museums displaying gifts from European royalty to the sultans of Yogyakarta and photographs and paintings of palace life and personages (Museum Lukisan) were designed and opened. One further museum called Museum Keramik dan Kristal (Ceramics and Crystal Museum) is found on the southern edge of the Pelataran Kedhaton in what was originally the tea preparation building (Patehan); in it are displayed 18th– and 19th-century Dutch-manufactured tea- and coffee-urns, tea and coffee services, and dinnerware once used by the royal family. All of these museums are now stops on the standard Karaton Ngayagyakarta tour and are included in its modest admission fee.[5]
Performance
Explications of palace architecture and objects of material culture delivered by tour guides can provide tourists with a wealth of information about and insights into Javanese court culture. But hearing and seeing performing arts live in the palace context arguably impacts tourists in a markedly different way. During the 1970s and 1980s, tourists would have the opportunity to view, if they visited on certain weekdays, what I would call “maintaining the palace gamelan and dance tradition rehearsals.” These were truly rehearsals and dance training sessions, not presentational performances. They were located in Bangsal Kasatriyan, where a sléndro – pélog pair of modern common practice kagungan dalem gamelans would be arrayed. Abdidalem niyaga and singers would practice the items for the upcoming Hadiluhung broadcast or any approaching ceremonies (such as Sekatèn) between 10:00 AM and Noon on Mondays and Wednesdays, and on Sunday mornings palace dance masters would train aspiring dancers to live gamelan accompaniment. No seats were made available to tourists, and no pre-determined program was followed.
Around 1998, this arrangement changed dramatically. The archaic gamelans that had been displayed for at least the previous twenty-five years were removed from Bangsal Srimenganti and relocated elsewhere.[6] A newly commissioned sléndro – pélog pair of gamelans, Kyahi Sangumukti – Kyahi Sangumulya, was installed in the southern third of the Srimenganti pavilion. Along the northern tratag (edge area) of the pavilion, which is a few feet lower in elevation than the floor of the pavilion proper, several dozen chairs were arranged in three rows facing south. In essence, Bangsal Srimenganti had been converted into a presentational performance space with a large and wide open area (for dancers or puppet theatre screens) between the backdrop of the gamelans and the lower audience seating. A simple set-up of theatrical lighting was added, as was a PA system. But perhaps the most significant facet of this transformation is what came to be programmed in this space. A weekly cycle of performances presenting a variety of traditional Javanese genres was designed and has continued to be followed right up to the present. On Mondays and Tuesdays, gamelan concerts (uyon-uyon) are presented, on Wednesdays it is 3-dimensional-rod-puppet theatre (wayang golek Menak), on Thursdays a program of free-standing traditional dances (beksa) is offered, on Fridays, due to a restriction on the performance of gamelans in the palace on this day, traditional unaccompanied sung poetry (waosan macapat) is performed, shadow-puppet theatre (wayang kulit) is presented on Saturdays, and free-standing dances (beksa) and dance theater (wayang wong) fragments are staged on Sundays. These daily presentations begin at 10:00AM, last until Noon or 1:00PM, and are timed to coincide with the peak hours of tourism at the palace. See the Tourism film on this site for a visual overview of this cycle of performances for tourists.
In essence, these performances are but another museum display, one in which palace performing arts are conveniently and predictably exhibited to domestic and foreign tourists. These exhibitions possess the added allure of live music, action, and drama that the other palace museums lack. Yet, at the same time, they are somewhat deceptive—not exactly what they purport to be. Most of the performers in these scheduled presentations are not abdidalem performers but amateurs and students belonging to gamelan clubs and attending performing arts schools from around the Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta.[7] However, Yogyakarta court music, dance, and puppetry have been shared with the general public since early in the 20th century, and often times the leaders of gamelan clubs and the music and dance faculty at performing arts high schools and colleges are themselves abdidalem performers. Therefore, the music, dance and puppetry tourists experience during the weekly cycle of performances in the palace is rooted in palace tradition and practice, even though the performers are not, in general, of the institution.
Since 1998, the Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday “maintaining the palace gamelan and dance tradition rehearsals” mentioned above continue to take place in Bangsal Kasatriyan simultaneously with the presentational performances in Bangsal Srimenganti. This, in my mind, is proof of the independence of these two palace performance spheres from one another. The former is a facet of ongoing “intra-negara” ceremonial traditions, the latter of palace public relations with its non-traditional “extra-negara” audiences.
In the course of my month-long 2016 visit to Yogyakarta, twenty-six performances involving palace gamelans (for uyon-uyon, dance performances, and puppet theatre presentations) took place in Bangsal Srimenganti during daily tourist hours at the Kraton. On four other days (all Fridays) during that month there were presentations of poetry reading/singing (waosan macapat) that did not involve performance on gamelans.[8] The daily entertainments for tourists serve the needs and desires of several constituencies. The palace, as a functioning royal household, uses these performances to connect with and represent itself to a contemporary audience comprised mostly of Indonesians, and especially schoolchildren, not directly invested in Javanese statecraft and its survival. The palace, through this series of presentations, is also assisting in the perpetuation of its own traditions. By giving young dancers and puppeteers experience performing in the palace, it is enriching a pool of talent it can draw upon in the future for its ceremonial needs. Young Javanese who study traditional music, dance and puppetry in clubs and schools often think of performing in the palace as an honor and privilege that would otherwise be difficult to attain without committing to becoming an abdidalem. Using groups from outside the palace to perform for non-ceremonial events such as these week-day performances (or for Pameran Karaton) frees palace musicians, who are organized through the Kridhamardawa office, to concentrate their energies on palace ceremonial events that incorporate the performing arts. Finally, for foreign tourists visiting Yogyakarta, the palace series affords them an opportunity to hear and see live performances of traditional Javanese performing arts in an authentic setting, something that is not always easy to find elsewhere in Yogyakarta during a short visit.
