Past Exhibitions 2016
Elevator Music 32: Desa, Kala, Patra
Detail of installation, Sixfold Symmetry: Pattern in Art and Science, Tang Teaching Museum, 2016
Elevator Music 32: Desa, Kala, Patra (Place, Time, Circumstance) brings the sound of the Balinese Gamelan angklung into the Tang’s capacious elevator. Gamelan is a complex cyclic music created using an ensemble of percussion instruments including metallophones, chimes, gongs, drums, cymbals, and flutes. It is analogous to the life-cycle elements of Agama Hindu Dharma (Balinese Hinduism), where life itself is cyclic. Gamelan angklung is one of over thirty types of Balinese gamelan, and it possesses the smallest instruments with the fewest pitches (four). It is performed primarily for religious rituals — in temple ceremonies or carried in processions and rites for the dead. It has a melody with short, repeating, interlocking patterns called kotekan.
In the Tang Teaching Museum’s Malloy Wing, as part of the exhibition Sixfold Symmetry: Pattern in Art and Science, visitors will find an actual Gamelan angklung, which is being used over the course of the exhibition for rehearsal and performance by the Skidmore College Gamelan Banyu Wali Ensemble. Elevator Music 32: Desa, Kala, Patra gives visitors an opportunity to hear field recordings from seven different villages throughout Bali made between 1964 and 1966.
Exhibition Name
Elevator Music 32: Desa, Kala, Patra
Exhibition Type
Elevator Music Series
Place
Elevator
Dates
Dec 17, 2016 - Mar 19, 2017
Curators
Elevator Music 32: Desa, Kala, Patra is organized by Rachel Seligman, Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs; Rachel Roe-Dale, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Skidmore College; and Elizabeth Macy, Teaching Professor of Music, Skidmore College.
