CONFERENCE AND FESTIVAL ‘NORTH BALINESE CULTURE’

July 30^th – August 2^nd

Singaraja, Bali

www.northbali.org

Henrice Vonck 081 236 713 448

The town of Singaraja, sitting on the north coast of Bali, will host the conference and festival ‘North Balinese Culture’, to be held from July 30^th to August 2^nd, 2009. Its projected goal is to study the cultural heritage and artistic identity of the Buleleng regency, as well as to stimulate the revitalization of its artistic activity, particularly its performing arts.

It is obvious that the culture of Bali is far more complex than what can be seen in tourist guides. What’s more, the many researches that have been conducted on the island, somehow also fail to portray Balinese arts and culture in a way that could be qualified as  ‘complete’ One of the main factors lies in the fact that the vast majority of studies have been conducted in the south central region of the island. Consequently, southern Balinese cultural phenomena came to represent (at least for foreigners) Bali as a whole, therefore hiding from view many shades of this complex cultural continuum.

The conference and festival ‘North Balinese Culture’ aims to correct the situation by drawing attention on a rather neglected, but nonetheless culturally rich area of Bali: the northern regency of Buleleng, where the dynamic kebyar musical style was born around 1915. Initiated by Dutch ethnomusicologist Henrice Vonck, and headed by I Gusti Bagus Sudhyatmaka Sugriwa (president of the Foundation for the Preservation of North Balinese Culture), this multidimensional event is organised by an international committee further consisting of I Gede Yudi Gautama (leader of Tri Bhuana Giri), I Wayan Dibia (former director of ISI Denpasar), Hedi I.R Hinzler (Leiden University, Netherlands) and Éric Vandal (Gong Giri Kedaton, Montréal, Canada) and held under the auspices of UNDIKSHA (Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha Singaraja).

The conference part will feature a roster of (inter)national scholars who will deal, through presentations and lecture/demonstrations, with a broad range of topics relating to North Balinese arts and culture. Keynote speakers will be author and playwright I Gede Dharna and master dancer/musician I Wayan Dibia. Sessions will deal with North Balinese music, dance and drama, regional literature, wayang and vocal music, language, literature, tourism and more.

The festival part will include performances of North Balinese music and dance during lunch and after dinner, featuring a gong kebyar mabarung at the Sasana Budaya stage (Jl Veteran, Singaraja) on Friday 31 July. The event also marks the opening of ‘Roots of North Balinese Culture’, an exhibition of old photographs of parba, drawings and prasi in the Museum Buleleng (curator: Hedi Hinzler), and of a painting exhibition in the Aula Dinas Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata  (curator: Hardiman).

This is a unique chance to discover a ‘different’ Bali, certainly not to be missed. For more information and to subscribe, visit www.northbali.org.