Featured Lecture-Demonstration:
Transforming Tradition – The Role of Research in Creating “Wayang Sampur-na”
By Garrett Kam
This lecture-demonstration offers a discourse on Garrett Kam’s creative process as a choreographer, researcher and performer of “Wayang Sampur-na”, an autobiographical work of cultures studied and places visited by the artist since 1975. As a result, it is evolving and changing with his experiences. In this session, he will be talking about his ongoing research in traditional Asian dances and how the different dance styles provide inspiration for new choreographies, incorporating his recent experience from a workshop conducted a week earlier with NAFA students.
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“Wayang Sampur-na”
- Story
In “Wayang Sampur-na: Epic Turning Points” created in 2010 and performed by Garrett Kam, sampur (Javanese dance sashes) are given new meanings for telling important scenes from the Ramayana epic of devotion, separation and reunion in a sampurna (ideal, pure) way.
- Props
Performing like a Javanese dhalang or solo puppeteer, Garrett creates masks and puppets of characters from sampur as they appear in episodes, animating and pulling them apart as the story unfolds with short narration in English between scenes. This introduces new audiences to the epic and brings another aspect to those who are familiar with it.
- Dance
Mostly danced in the Javanese court style from Yogyakarta, the work also includes choreographic ideas and elements from other parts of Indonesia (Bali and West Java), India, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Cambodia, Okinawa, China and Korea in addition to some improvisation.
- Music
The opening and closing scenes in this wayang (performance) use Javanese gamelan music, with nine narrative sections done to Javanese and Balinese melodies arranged for Western instruments by Canadian ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee, and Asian inspired film music by Australian composer Elizabeth Drake.
Excerpts of the performance can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE0a74CFbTg
About the artist
Garrett Kam has a bachelor’s degree in Art (1976) and a master’s degree in Southeast Asian Studies (1987) from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (UHM). Garrett studied Javanese dance from 1975 to 1979 at UHM, and from 1979 to 1982 under master teachers KRT Sasminta Mardawa, R Sunartomo, RM Sutamba, RL Prabapawaka and Bambang Pudjasworo in Yogyakarta.
Garrett was the first non-Javanese to perform in the professional group of the Mardawa Budaya and Pamulangan Beksa Ngayogyakarta schools of court dance. Garrett has taught and performed in the USA, Thailand, Cambodia, Okinawa, Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and Sri Lanka. He has also studied Okinawan and Korean dance.
Source: www.nafa.edu.sg