Andrew N. Weintraub

Dangdut Soul: Who are ‘the People’ in Indonesian Popular Music?

This essay is an ideological critique of popular print media about dangdut, a genre of Indonesian popular music. The audience for dangdut has been imagined, represented, and mobilized in various ways to support the ideological interests of commercial, government, and critical institutions. In popular print publications, representations of dangdut as the music of ‘the people’ (rakyat)—the majority of society—have been produced with great frequency and in a variety of popular print media. I describe the ways in which popular print media ‘speaks for’ people, and the relations of power that define those discourses. Using an historical approach, I construct an interpretation of these representational practices, taking into account shifts in the social meaning and function of dangduts audience. Formerly associated with the disenfranchised and depoliticized underclass, the music was marketed to appeal to middle class and elite audiences in the 1980s. While dangduts audience has certainly grown, dangdut has not been thoroughly incorporated into the national culture of Indonesia, as claimed by government and military officials in popular print media. By taking this approach, I seek to provide a critical understanding of Indonesian media and its construction of popular music audiences within the changing social and historical conditions of modern Indonesia.

Contest-ing Culture: Sundanese Wayang Golek Purwa Competitions in New Order Indonesia

Government efforts to monitor, regulate, and control the art of wayang dramatically increased during Soehartos New Order regime (1966-1998). State-sponsored wayang competitions, as well as the aesthetic categories used for evaluating performers, became important sites for merging wayang performance with the goals of the state. Government-sanctioned performance standards were at odds with popular practice, however, which tended to emphasize entertainment, innovation, and communication with audiences.

Theory in Institutional Pedagogy and "Theory in Practice" for Sundanese Gamelan Music

The A. examines how fundamental aspects of music theory (the way musicians conceptualize piece structures, group them into categories, and articulate these systems to others) are constructed, debated, rationalized, and used in Sundanese gamelan music. The A. considers the development of academic music theory which continues to be taught at ATSI (Akademi Seni Tari Indonesia) in the capital city of the province of west Java. He explains some of the reasons why the modal system borrowed from central Javanese music theory does not currently enjoy widespread acceptance among sundanese gamelan musicians.

The Sound and Spectacle of Dangdut Koplo: Genre and Counter-Genre in East Java, Indonesia

This article explores the concept of genre and counter-genre in music by examining the nature and practice of dangdut koplo in relation to dangdut, its dominant progenitor. Dangdut koplo (or Koplo) is a regional form of dangdut (dangdut daerah) from East Java. Regional forms of dangdut exhibit an intensified level of artistic creativity by incorporating regional languages, musical elements, and/or performance practices. Dangdut koplo is characterized by its distinctive drum pattern, fast tempo, genre-bending arrangements, and eroticized style of dance. Dangdut koplo crystallized in the mid-1990s in conjunction with the changing landscape of politics and economics, greater access to technology, lack of enforcement on locally produced recordings, and the decentralization of the music industry. As a case study, dangdut koplo illustrates the discourse and practice of genre formation in post-reformasi Indonesia. Data are based on fieldwork in East Java, primarily Surabaya and environs (Lamongan, Gresik, and Sidoarjo), 2007–2012.