Colloquium Musicology
Henrice Vonck, University
of Amsterdam
Thursday 17 January 2019,
15:30-17:00
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16,
room 3.01
Last summer, Undiksha
University in Singaraja (North Bali) expressed their wish to set up a research
centre for an in-depth and long-term study of North Balinese art and culture in
cooperation with the Musicology department of the University of Amsterdam. This
research will result in an online database, accessible for local and
(inter)national interested parties, and researchers, and aims to revitalize the
local culture and performing arts.
Recent studies
increasingly show that innovation and creativity are the main style
characteristics of North Balinese art and culture, compared to the more
traditional and standardized South Balinese culture. Besides that, the region
North Bali is a highly cultural diverse area, which led to a high sense of
artistic competition among artists. In this dynamic whole, around the year 1915
a new and vibrant – and now omnipresent gamelan style – arose, called gong
kerbyar. Sadly enough, the particular North Balinese style went out of vogue
and has almost disappeared, because of the economic and cultural dominance of
southern Bali.
In her colloquium she will
shine a new light on the style characteristics of North Balinese art and
culture, and then explain how we aim to (re)discover, describe and revitalise
this local culture, and bestow it its rightful place in the artistic world.
Henrice Vonck is a
musician-researcher and ethnomusicologist, whose dissertation Manis and Keras
(1997) about gender wayang in Tejakula (North Bali) remains one of the few
musicological studies of North Balinese music. Since 1987 Henrice is artistic
leader of Irama Foundation, which has a longstanding history of concerts,
theatre productions and summer schools with renown Balinese artists, like
dalang Wayan Wija, dancers I Wayan Catra and I Wayan Dibia, composer I Made
Asnawa, and teacher and gamelan maker I Nyoman Sudarna. Vonck was also
programme coordinator of the two editions of the International Gamelan Festival
Amsterdam (IGFA), in the Tropentheater Amsterdam.
Out of enthusiasm for the
enormous diversity of the no longer in vogue North Balinese art and culture,
she initiated and organized the International Conference and Festival for North
Balinese Arts & Culture in Singaraja (2010, 2013). Following up on the
recommendations from the 2013 edition, she is now establishing a Research &
Education Centre for North Balinese Arts, in cooperation with Undishka,
Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha (Singaraja, North Bali) and the Musicology
department of the University of Amsterdam. In her working life Henrice is
affiliated as Artistic Research coordinator to the Master of Music of Codarts
University for the Arts, Rotterdam. Last but not least she works as a
mindfulness trainer at Codarts and the Centrum voor Mindfulness in Amsterdam.