Zeventig jaar geleden werd in de Indonesische stad Bandung een grote internationale conferentie georganiseerd, the Asian-African Conference. De conferentie werd gewijd aan de uitbouw van een nieuwe dekoloniale realiteit en de uitbouw van een Beweging van Niet-Gebonden Landen. Aanwezig waren staatshoofden en regeringsleiders van Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, Egypte, Ethiopië, Cote-d'Ivore, Iran, Irak, Japan, Jordanië, Laos, Libanon, Liberia, Libië, Nepal, de Filippijnen, Saudi-Arabië, Soedan, Syrië, Thailand, Turkije, Thaïland, Turkije, Viëtnam en Jemen.
Vandaag een bijzonder interessant artikel van over 'de muziek van Bandung'.
Closer attention to the music of the era gives us an even richer dimension to this story, one rooted in a visceral spirit of connection across continents, from Africa and Asia to Latin America and the Caribbean. This was evident at an event I co-led in Bristol last spring at IC Visual Lab (ICVL), a local arts organisation and project space that focuses on overlooked social histories. I collaborated with IC Visual Lab’s co-director Ben G.J. Thomas, who spent the weeks prior carefully sourcing rare vinyl records and researching the varied sounds that might have been heard during the Bandung Conference. In this piece, we trace the stories behind these sounds, exploring the role of music and internationalism across Southeast Asia in the era of decolonisation. Many experimented with Western popular music; yet also, well before Havana’s Tricontinental Conference, Indonesian and Cambodian musicians were reworking the sounds of Black America, Africa, and Latin America for local audiences as they rediscovered their own regional traditions. These sounds captured a sense of people on the move, always looking outwards to the rest of the world, even as the Cold War threatened to tear it apart.
Indonesian President Sukarno, the host of the Bandung Conference, was passionate about the role of culture in representing the country abroad. Indonesian artists, too, announced their arrival on the world stage, declaring themselves ‘Heirs to World Culture’ in a fiery cultural testimonial issued in 1950 (also the title of an excellent collection on the era). Amidst a cultural cold war between the Soviet Union, China, and America, who sent ballet troupes, circus performers, and jazz musicians to post-colonial Asia and Africa, these artists drew inspiration from multiple sources and found their own voice.
The Sukarno government used dance diplomacy to promote Indonesian cultural heritage. With the Dancers of Bali world tour of 1952-53, dancers and gamelan musicians travelled from the small Balinese village of Peliatan to the great cities of the world, including London and New York. The show was produced by an English ballet enthusiast, John Coast, who once shipped arms and medicine to supply the Indonesian revolution. Coast repurposed some of the same programs featured in the 1931 Paris Exhibition, which showcased the cultures of the French Empire and fed Western appetites for exoticism. The show featured elaborate costumes, as well as the intricate hand and eye movements and complex footwork associated with Legong, a form of dance which originated in Bali’s royal courts.
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In Southeast Asia, the music of the Bandung era stands as a testament to the internationalism of the time and to the role of musicians in giving voice to the tensions between home and the world that resonated in the hearts of many. Yet like the nations present at Bandung, musicians, too, could not help but be caught up in the violent repercussions of a global Cold War.
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