Denpasar, In the City

Suling Gamelan Orchestra

Banjar Kedaton Community in Kesiman
village, Denpasar City, has its own Suling Gamelan Orchestra, which has grown out of a tiny association that had but a few small suling instruments. Chairman of the orchestra group, I Wayan Turun (51), revealed that the community established the association in 1979 to develop on the principle of self-support.

The development has succeeded in gaining more instruments to complete the gamelan set by adding suling blow instruments of a larger size in 1981. The community then bought other instruments. At present, they have 5 large sulings; 20 smaller sulings and other instruments; and 2 large drums to give performances with.
Suling orchestra scarcely accompanies dances. Instead, it goes on instrumental play with songs called gending lelambatan and gending palegongan in Balinese, with an average of one hour show. This group of songs includes amongst others istri-istri (women), ngereh (search), and kuntul (egret).
The gong ensemble, consists of young men, usually showing their skill in a temple odalan ceremony or during a wedding ceremony, in parades of Bali Art Festival, and in entertaining tourists in hotels in the resorts of Nusa Dua, Sanur, Jimbaran, and Kuta.
“So far, there has been no offers from hotels for tourist entertainment, but we shall take the floor in the big event of seeing off the last sunset of 2002 on Tuesday, 31 December at Puputan Badung Plain in Denpasar,” I Wayan Turun said. (arsa)