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Inventing the Performing Arts
This chapter is in the book Inventing the Performing Arts
279Glossaryadat. An Arabic-derived word for “custom” denoting local practices not associated directly with normative Islam or other religions.alun-alun. The public square or large courtyard adjacent to kraton and regency offices, an important site for public entertainment and ceremony.alus. The Javanese word for refined, connoting refinement in artistic form and execution as well as manners. Alus resonates with European conceptions of “fine arts” and the gentility of the aristocracy.angklung. Tuned bamboo shakers traditionally played as part of a larger musical ensemble to accompany masquerades and processionals in Java. All-angklung choirs gained popularity after the 1938 invention of diatonic angklung.arja. A form of danced opera with a diverse repertoire that enjoyed popularity in Bali in the late colonial period.bangsawan. A Malay-language popular musical theater that originated as a local response to Parsi theater in Penang and spread to the rest of the Malay world by the end of the nineteenth century. Bangsawan was originally accompanied by a hybrid ensemble of Indian, European, and Southeast Asian instruments, but the orchestration was thoroughly Western by the 1920s.Batavia. The name for present-day Jakarta during the Dutch colonial period, the capital and most trendsetting city of the Dutch Indies.batik. Textiles manufactured by hand through a process of wax-resist dyeing, considered an important marker of status and identity in traditional Java. Also spelled bathik in Javanese.bedhaya. An extremely refined form of Javanese court dance with eight or nine identically dressed female dancers accompanied by a full gamelan orchestra. Also spelled bedoyo or bedaya.Boedi Oetomo. “Beautiful Endeavor,” a political and cultural membership organization dominated by priyayi elites, founded in Batavia in 1908.Bratayuda. A Javanese telling of the Sanskritic Bhāratayuddha, a section of the Mahabharata narrating the cataclysmic war between the Pendhawa and Kurawa brothers.bunkajin. Japanese for “person of culture,” referring to the civilian Japanese and Korean arts workers who created and disseminated pro-Japanese propaganda during the Japanese occupation.cakalele. A generic name for the war dances of Eastern Indonesia, particularly the islands of Maluku, which in premodern times served to excite warriors and terrify enemies.Calon Arang. A form of Balinese ritual drama in which the terrifying witch figure of Rangda is vanquished and appeased as a means to overcome evil influences and dispel epidemics.
© University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu

279Glossaryadat. An Arabic-derived word for “custom” denoting local practices not associated directly with normative Islam or other religions.alun-alun. The public square or large courtyard adjacent to kraton and regency offices, an important site for public entertainment and ceremony.alus. The Javanese word for refined, connoting refinement in artistic form and execution as well as manners. Alus resonates with European conceptions of “fine arts” and the gentility of the aristocracy.angklung. Tuned bamboo shakers traditionally played as part of a larger musical ensemble to accompany masquerades and processionals in Java. All-angklung choirs gained popularity after the 1938 invention of diatonic angklung.arja. A form of danced opera with a diverse repertoire that enjoyed popularity in Bali in the late colonial period.bangsawan. A Malay-language popular musical theater that originated as a local response to Parsi theater in Penang and spread to the rest of the Malay world by the end of the nineteenth century. Bangsawan was originally accompanied by a hybrid ensemble of Indian, European, and Southeast Asian instruments, but the orchestration was thoroughly Western by the 1920s.Batavia. The name for present-day Jakarta during the Dutch colonial period, the capital and most trendsetting city of the Dutch Indies.batik. Textiles manufactured by hand through a process of wax-resist dyeing, considered an important marker of status and identity in traditional Java. Also spelled bathik in Javanese.bedhaya. An extremely refined form of Javanese court dance with eight or nine identically dressed female dancers accompanied by a full gamelan orchestra. Also spelled bedoyo or bedaya.Boedi Oetomo. “Beautiful Endeavor,” a political and cultural membership organization dominated by priyayi elites, founded in Batavia in 1908.Bratayuda. A Javanese telling of the Sanskritic Bhāratayuddha, a section of the Mahabharata narrating the cataclysmic war between the Pendhawa and Kurawa brothers.bunkajin. Japanese for “person of culture,” referring to the civilian Japanese and Korean arts workers who created and disseminated pro-Japanese propaganda during the Japanese occupation.cakalele. A generic name for the war dances of Eastern Indonesia, particularly the islands of Maluku, which in premodern times served to excite warriors and terrify enemies.Calon Arang. A form of Balinese ritual drama in which the terrifying witch figure of Rangda is vanquished and appeased as a means to overcome evil influences and dispel epidemics.
© University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu
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