Performing arts and cultural politics in South Sulawesi

Abstract

Music and dance have long played an important role in the cultural life of the peoples of South Sulawesi. Yet these arts have drawn relatively little attention from scholars, particularly in the post-colonial era. Over the course of this century, much has changed in this region in both the contexts and forms of performance. With local political autonomy largely crushed by the Dutch in the early years of this century, the systems of royal patronage have entirely disappeared. And following the fifteen years of rebellion against the new Indonesian republic, led by Kahar Muzakkar (1950-1965, see Harvey 1974), South Sulawesi has taken its place as one of many provinces making up 'Kawasan Timur Indonesia' (Indonesia's Eastern Zone). As such, it has been somewhat less favoured than Java and Sumatra in the development plans of the national government under President Suharto's New Order. Nevertheless, national policies pertaining to culture, including the performing arts, have had significant impact on South Sulawesian society. While some musicians and dancers maintain their village forms of recreational and ritual music, there are many whose approach to performance has changed in response to the new national and regional agendas. This study is an exploration of the contexts of performance in South Sulawesi, primarily in the 1990s, but with reference to the previous several decades. My findings are drawn mostly from two periods of study in South Sulawesi during the summers of 1993 and 1994. The resulting study is not intended as an ethnographic account of performance within a particular small community, but rather as an introduction to issues that deserve the attention of Indonesianists, whose concern with performing arts during the post-colonial era has been focused almost entirely on Java and Bali. I was drawn to South Sulawesi largely by an encounter I had in Jakarta in September 1979 with students from the performing arts high school of South Sulawesi.1 The performances they offered in a pan-Indonesian festival were striking, and yet, as stage presentations, clearly not as successful as those of Java and Bali. The students from South Sulawesi confided to me a sense of embarrassment that their arts could not measure up to the far more spectacular dance and music traditions of their Javanese