Nightlight News

Much of the inspiration for our musical favs like Alice Coltrane, Sun City Girls, Can, Volcano the Bear, or Terry Riley is the vast arena of traditional and popular musiks from the so-called Far East. Vast. The Sublime Frequencies label has been an excellent resource of late for those of us who have become enamored with the unfamiliar and telling sounds of Cambodia, India, Bali, China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and on and on. Equally useful have been releases on Blueberry Buddha, Nonesuch Explorer, Sub-Rosa, even Hanson. Mandalay Marionettes, Radio Phnom Penh, Tibetan Buddhist Rites, koto, pipa, ragas, throat singing, and gamelan all have righteous places in my own musical wanderings since becoming afflicted by an obsession with far away places and their sonic forms of expression. I'm not that old, so it hasn't been that long. Which is why I must use this nascent fascination and the virtue of this format to exorcise some info-demons from my palette.
One of the most fascinating musical expressions from the expanse of genres and styles that any curious listener may happen upon during perusal and mining of far east sounds is the Kecak (ketjack, ketjak, ketiak) dance from Bali. By now, the sound has become at least remotely familiar to most people, although many do not know what it is, only that they recognize it. What makes this sound and dance a peculiar example is that its authenticity as a traditional music is somewhat questionable, as we shall see.
Without spoiling, one should at least know for now that the kecak is actually a product of the 2oth century and is not as entrenched in the dust of eras as the music featured, for example, on the Sub-Rosa series Tibetan Buddhist Rites from the Monasteries of Bhutan. Please view Wheel of Time, a documentary by Werner Herzog, to experience these rituals from the comfort of your own home. It is a true visual and auditory journey.
Kecak dance is a spiritual form of expression that has its roots in The Ramayana. Primarily a dance, but also a chant, monkey form is typically performed by 50-200 men seated in tight concentric circles around a central figure. That figure represents Rama - dressed in green, an incarnation of Vishnu - the central figure from the Ramayana who must rescue his wife Sita from the Evil King Ravana.
The seated men in the chant are meant to represent Rama's monkey armies that play a prominent role in The Ramayana.
The Ramayana, written record dated roughly from 500 BCE to 150 BCE, is both a Hindu religious tale and a work of important secular manifestation. The Kecak dance also reflects a religious underpinning washed with socio-political implications, tied down through its origins, discussed downwards.
The sound of the chants is multi-layered. The most prominent vocalization is the "cak", which is shouted simultaneously by the members of the performance who are seated, waving their arms above their heads in unison. Each of the seated men are shirtless, wearing checkered pants. Seated in circles and facing the central figure the men raise and lower their arms, mimicking the percussive chaos of their "cak" chants which are underscored by sometimes seemingly random vocal harmonies, mostly low-toned and rambling. These vocals do an excellent job of recreating the violent cacophany of gamelan without the use of a massive bell choir, creating a unique sound that is dense and layered and invigorating.
Kecak has its roots in sang hyang dance. Sang hyang is exorcism, performed between priests and young girls - perhaps only a pair - a ceremony meant to help cleanse a village of evil spirits. A group of village women and men providing choral power will gather around the central girls, chanting, transferring energy, and helping advance the ceremony. Smoking incense in a brazier is providing a sensory transformation - the priest navigates the smoke to assist the soon-to-be-exorcised in acheiving a trance.
Kecak dance is also an exorcism. However, this religious function has been somewhat diluted for the status quo viewers. The Kecak monkey chant-dance was developed through efforts attributed to Walter Spies, a German painter born in Russia in the late 1800s. Spies originally sailed to Java in 1923 and then moved to Bali in 1927. With the help of a local named Wayan Limbak, Spies developed the monkey dance as a way of turning the sang hyang into an art form that would be easily accepted while on exhibition throughout the globe.
To note, Limbak recently died at the pleasantly elderly age of dusty 106, having outlived three of his wives (NY Times obituary).
If Spies helped create the dance with Limbak, and it was really just an evolution of a purely religious dance into something more marketable, then questions start to beg. Some of the notable appearances of the Ketjak dance in popular American culture include Mike Patton's use of the chant's sound in a Mr. Bungle song and also in some commercial I never saw. To be sure, Kecak is first and foremost a Balinese expression for the non-Balinese.
I have wondered if the exotic sound and origin of the monkey stunt isn't tainted somehow by its apparent lack of ancient legacy, or at least a lack of some kind of purely indigenous origin.
A dance that is the project of a German painter has become a traveling symbol for exotic Bali - OK, ha. Another unfortunate case of Western influence shuttling the development of a continually problematic/damaging tourist industry in a marginalized nation. After all, Bali bombings targeting tourist industry spots are at once an example of local resistance, terrorism, and violence specifically targeted at one of the most visible levels of Western interference in the Indonesian daily life. Kecak dance then seems to be some sort of musical metaphor, a violent chant exorcising demons and in the same breath releasing those demons in new hosts.
But, at some other level, the Kecak is also a pleasant, interesting listen, and not bad-at-all inspiration for anyone spicing up a rousing folk campfire chant. That it represents nuclear flatulence in the collision of travel, imperialism, commercialism, and suicidal dedication is knowledge best left beyond the pleased and awed ignorant listener. Watch Baraka and stop thinking so hard about world politics for a little while? Seems simple enough, or at least whip out your Nonesuch Explorer copy of Music from the Morning of the World so you can practice your "cak".