 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. I'm Crystal Qua, long time no see for you Think Tech fans out there. Today I'm here on behalf of the Outreach College at UH Manoa because I would love to share with you a very exciting and interesting cultural performance that's coming up at UH Manoa at the Kennedy Theater. I've got a very international set of guests today and I'm going to introduce them now to you. Basically, this is going to be the performance of the Ramayana, a Balinese traditional dance and theater, dance and music production. So on my first side, we have I Made Moja from Batuan, which is a traditional arts village in Bali, correct? That's right. Yes. So Made is a professional Balinese dancer and painter also based in San Francisco. How long have you been in San Francisco for? It's over 18 years. Wow. It's been a while. So you're local. Pretty much local girls here. I'm going to look forward to hearing your tips about San Francisco and Balinese culture. And mixed to Made is, I'm going to say doctor, she earned her PhD recently. Congratulations to Dr. Annie Reynolds, who is the assistant artistic director at the Gamalansigara Madu. Correct. Which you're going to explain to us what that is in a bit. And also the assistant program director at the East-West Center. Is that right? At the East-West Center Arts Program. Arts Program. I'm in charge of this big production coming up next week. And you're also, you've been to Bali numerous times. You speak fluent. Indonesian. And Balinese. Incredible. Okay. So you can show off your language talents too in a little bit. Last but not least, we have I Putu Gede Setiawan. Yes. All the way from Japan. From Japan, but absolutely and from Bali. I was there for more than 10 years. Okay. And you speak fluent Japanese too? Of course. Wow. This is a really impressive international panel. And Putu is also a professional musician and Gamalan teacher from Bali, who is the artistic director at the Ottono Mori Gamalan Studio. And that's in Tokyo. Yes. Yes. So what is your common thread today? The strongest common thread. The three of you are here for it today. Okay. Oh, that's the answer. Right. There are so many threads. Yeah. Son of music. They bring me. We get together. You know, like with the music, especially Balinese music, they bring us together, create. Great. Story, dance as well. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. And what's really neat is we're bringing through this project, we're bringing two groups together. So what's really wonderful about the Ottono Mori and Gamalan Sagara Madu. Can you translate and tell me what the meaning of those are first? So Ottono Mori Gamalan from Tokyo is the sound of the forest. Sound of the forest. And then our UH-based Balinese Gamalan Ensemble Gamalan Sagara Madu means the ocean of honey. Wow. Yeah. So we're bringing the ocean and the forest together with this project. So I think our common thread, what we're finding, which is so neat, is that Gamalan Sagara Madu teaches, he's from Bali. He's a Balinese artist. And he teaches in Tokyo. He's based in Tokyo as well. Our artistic director here in Honolulu, also from Bali, but based locally. And so each group has these very strong ties to Bali as well. So as the artists are coming, so we have these the artists who are Japanese, who are coming from Ottono Mori from Tokyo coming to work with our local artists. We have so many threads of all work with as well back in Bali. And then coming here to hopefully present this production together. Is this the first time a collaboration of this international scale has come together for a performance here? This is under the Asia-Pacific Dance Festival, yes? And so we have San Francisco, Japan, Hawaii, Indonesia, Bali. It's really quite diverse. This is absolutely amazing because this is this crazy project. This is from me first. Yeah, I just make a joke how to show the Balinese performance. But the members will be not Balinese. This is from Japan and from Hawaii. But doing the Balinese art. How do these Japanese people get involved and become so interested in this? Yeah, but some of the Balinese, my student is so interesting about the Bali. Then absolutely for this project, it's Ramayana. It's very difficult because we have to talk about the dance, talk about the music, talk about how it's called Dalaam. What does it mean? The narrator. Yes, the narrator. And then how to mix in one. It's very difficult. But my student can do it well. Then I was a performer in Bali first. Then at Yokohama and Tokyo. Then this time I have to make a collaboration with how I do. Then I have to make more, more, more, more success. This is my dream. Well, I think you're reaching it because it's a really great start up. Let's back up a little bit and talk about the origins of the story of the Ramayana. So the title is Ramayana, the Abduction of Sita. Would you like to share where the origins from and what is the Balinese interpretation of it in a nutshell? Made? This Hindu epic story, this Ramayana, this original comes from India. So in Bali we have some different versions, as is the India version. But the story pretty much the same story from the end to the beginning to the end, pretty much the same. Just the way they show as an art performance, of course it's a bit different because the music and culture. But the Balinese version has been taken on for a long time? Yes. Bali is like one of the most like Hindus religions right now. Also the Hindus come from India. Also the culture kind of carry on with the religion as well. So for us culturally starved people out here in Honolulu, what is the story of Ramayana? The story of Ramayana is about, oh my goodness, it's a really wonderful epic tale about Prince Rama and Prince Sita. There's Rama, he's going to the forest with Lakshmana and with Sita. And then Ravana is the evil king. So we are upholding Rama as a very high moral wonderful prince and then kind of in opposition to the evil Ravana who's trying to take Sita. And that's the basic story. And we see how Ravana is kind of corrupt and a manipulator and kind of through that kind of manipulation. And along the way they're meeting all these different heroes that are trying to kind of help her. So that she's not Jatayu, the Garuda bird who's very heroic. So we get these wonderful kind of character dances. Hanuman, the white monkey king is very athletic in his movements and then he'll be accompanied by our local little keiki dancers. I think we have photos. Between four to seven years old they live here. They're local kids here in Hawaii. So every different character, we have the whole gamut of the different character types from the refined to... And the masks. And the masks were made by Pat Moja. So we got to try them on. It's starting to come to life for these kids. It's excited when they try the masks. Pat Moja is also very talented as an artist too. We have a sketch of a painting. In fact I think you just described one of the scenes if we could see the sketch. Isn't that where he abducts her? Or what is it? This is when the sita is adopted by Arawana. Absolutely, before he takes the sita, he changed himself to... Old man. Old man. Old man is usually defined as a man. Thank you. He changed himself. I didn't say Alexa, did I? He heard Alexa. Go ahead. So he changed himself to old man who needs water to pray. He is going to pray. But he is a liar. He is a liar. And then he says, please give me water. Please give me water. Absolutely, before he takes the sita, she protected by a magical fire. No one can enter. No one can get the sita. That's why he makes a trick to... He changed himself to old man who said, give me water. Please give me water. Then sita heard, okay, I will give you water. Then some water, then give the old man. Give the water to old man that cuts the hand of the sita. But don't give away the whole story because... It's very interesting. But I wanted to bring back the attention that Mane drew that intricately gorgeous painting that is going to be auctioned off at our culinary celebration. But you also are from an arts village in Bali. Did you want to talk a little bit about that and how that influenced you as a person, as a creative person and how that ties in? There's a quick background. It's around 1978. My father came here. To Hawaii? Yeah, to Hawaii, doing some exhibition. So I just dream how Hawaii looked like. And I still dream in there. So I've been invited to come here for performance. I came forward for more. What is the... Would you say there's a commonality in the Hawaiian culture with Balinese culture? I think it's about nature. How to protect the nature. How to believe with nature. In Bali we have like three things that you have to keep in balance. That's the similarity between the way I see it, by my eyes. People in preserve the culture. Do you think this story is relevant to today? This is an epic story of a huge background, culturally speaking. How do you feel about the woman's position? Do you feel like the adduction of a female? Is that something we should talk about today? Or do women need saving today? What do you take away from this story? I would say she actually comes across as a very strong character. She's the one making things happen. She tells her where to go. It's the objection of her in that one scene. But Hanuman comes to her. She's not going to let anybody come in. She wants to know who you are. She wants proof that you're coming on Rama's behalf. In the end we see her as a very strong character. She's saved because of her own will as well. Is the Rama epic also? How did Rama love his wife? He's so lovely. He loves sacrifice in this story. That's definitely relevant to today. Absolutely. Sacrifice. Women who seem to appear to be victims. They come across certain situations on their own strength. That's a little something for us to chew on for a quick break. We'll be back and we'll continue talking about the performance of the Ramayana. Stay tuned and we'll talk and learn more about their culture. I'm Ethan Allen, your host on Pacific Partnerships in Education here on Think Tech Hawaii. Every other week, Tuesdays at 3pm, we'll talk about the fascinating, interesting and unique partnerships in education that occur across the Pacific Islands with Hawaii, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Guam. All these places have really rich local education programs going on and the exchange among and between these programs is a wealth of great information helping the islands all learn how to survive and thrive in our ever-changing world. Thank you for your partnerships in education. I'm Jay Fiedel, Think Tech. Think Tech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco and Me, which is Mina Marita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator, and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangelsdorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We talk about energy every two days, every two weeks on Think Tech. Aloha. Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Crystal Kwok here on behalf of Outreach College, UH Manoa, interviewing three wonderful guests international about the performance of the Ramayana, the abduction of Sita. We have, living in San Francisco right now, is Madea, who's a painter and performer. We have Annie, who just got her doctorate. We're also in charge of this whole performance with the East West Center arts program. And we have Putu from Japan, part of the Golan Musician. I love it. I love that we're so international here in Hawaii doing this amazing cultural performance. So let's talk about this. You just came together a few days ago, and you have this intense rehearsal schedule to put together. Now, how many people in this ensemble? In total, artists on stage will have over 50, nearing 60 artists. I thought it was 30, and then I recounted and realized how many of us there are. And collaborations from different countries, different languages, different pages, different performance art bases, different levels of performers, different levels of professionalism. It's really, it's really So share some stories or have, what about this process in this short time of this rehearsal? We have some photos of your rehearsals. Is there anything that you'd like to share during this process? Of course. Okay, like this, the children, the deers. So very cute. Absolutely. I don't think we will have the cute deer, three percent. Do we have to leave across the stage? Yes, of course. Then, so they are so on, and also this one is from my student, this is from Japan, and another four percent is from Hawaii. They are so amazing. Good team works. So in the center that, oh, if we go back to the last picture, that was Sita at the center. Oh, so she's like Sita. Yeah. So on the behind, there's a lots of instruments. This is a ballet instrument. It's more than 20? Yeah, it's any kind of instrument, so we have to make it one performance. So it's very difficult. Absolutely. Because no text. All the music, we have to mine in our minds then we play. Why don't you have text? Because ballet is a traditional music, it's without text. Without text. Now it's around one and a half. All is our mind and then we have to play. It's so difficult. So everything is taught by year. So they learned the music and their ensemble before when they did other productions of it, they had their musicians and dancers working together in Japan. And they'd worked with Balinese artists and learned. But it's all taught through repetition and patience of the teachers. But you've been rehearsing your portion in Japan. Yes. And then we've been learning, from our teacher, Imade, madewidana has been teaching. We've been learning this music for about eight months now. Scene by scene. And so we haven't had the luxury of having the dancers to watch for our cues. So he has our teacher. You can't have like a camera there. It doesn't work. We're imagining the scene. So made sitting in rehearsal saying, okay this is the scene where they're in the forest and this is We have one more photo that we actually skipped past. I wanted to see whether that was another. So that's madewidana. The teacher here. So you actually see him dancing here with the kids. He's the Hanuman character here. He's actually going to be one of the lead musicians in the ensemble. But as is traditional in Bali, musicians dance and dancers play music. So he's sitting here until we get, we're playing this role until we get our Hanuman dancer who comes from Japan today. So that the kids know how to follow their cues. Wow, that's fascinating. So you want to talk a little bit about the gamelan? We haven't talked about that. It's the music. People who don't know Balinese music. Yeah, absolutely. Balinese music is a Balinese traditional music. As I said before, to learn the Balinese music, of course not tax. This is our tradition. So we got to teach from our teacher and then learn and copy. Then we have to remember, then play. Whatever, whatever of music, whatever of title, how long the title also be reminded. How many different instruments are there? For the Balinese instruments, it will be more than six characters inside. Okay. And then the skills are different styles. Are there any gender roles to which skills are suitable for which instruments? Like in Japan, the taiko, are there... Absolutely, yes. Percussion is main. But for the drums, it will be used both of our hands. Mostly use some pangol. Yeah, the mallet. And the other one is like this. But we touch from right hand. But another left hand should be touch under the key. Because all of the instruments are made by cell phone. It's a sound noise. So we have to, on the same time, touch the key. So you're playing and as you're playing the next tone, you're damping the last tone. So that it's not all ringing. Because they're made of bronze keys with bamboo resonators. So noise. So if you just play it across, it will just be the all-ring. Wow. Okay, so you need to be very multi-tasking. You're acting layers. What about the dancing? How do you interpret with that music? How do you feed off the music? Or do you have your own technique that follows its own? Sometimes in this case, and this is the Ramayana, we kind of try to put the music in the dancer. Sometimes the dancer leads the music to get cute when getting higher and I mean louder when softer. Is that what they're doing? Yeah. And so in this case, kind of like we try to put it together when the music is going to be louder. So the dancer had some anticipation. The music can be louder. And then the dancer now to get kind of a cue to music louder. The dancer gives the cue for the music to be louder. In this case, I had to know, oh, this can be loud. And then I kind of like give a cue. So between the dancer and the music kind of like building up. Sorry. That's why the dancer also be knowing about the music. The musician also knowing about the dance. If they know nothing, can make this together, can make it together. It's very interesting, it's one. So everyone will be knowing about the other. So you have to learn both things, really? Yeah, you have to know. To understand truth, following music and dance. Is there a certain type of training you need that's required for this? Yeah, I'm a musician. Sometimes I have to practice once how to get a cue, how to give a cue. So because I learned that, then I know the dancer will be give me a cue. That's the timing. The point is timing. When he will give the cue. What is the most difficult thing in this collaboration? What do you think it is? The merit of music, dance and narrator. So the narrator feeds off of again the intensity of the movement at the time. So she has to adjust accordingly. Or is it the other way around? Where the dancers listen to the narration and have to follow the narration. All at the same time. All at the same time. So now what the narrator is going to say, everyone does another whole thing. We're just kind of like, okay, I think he's going to say this. And then we just say, okay, I'm going to do something like this. Acting above the narrator. It's such a tradition to have a piece like this. People don't know cultural dance. They don't really know how to read a performance like this. It's almost like a painting put alive on stage. Do you want to elaborate on that? It's something very artistic. Sometimes you think this is all improvised, but of course not. When you see all the form, from beginning to the end, the music and the dance, you have some idea about improvised. Because you know exactly what's going to happen. So just more feel comfortable with that. The music is going to change here. The narrator is going to say this. Now you have to feel more comfortable to acting. Actings relate to dance. When you say acting, they have strong characters. They're written in. But how do they embody that in such a traditional movement? The traditional movement is based on the Balinese dance movement. Not just acting. Just like what? Gestures represent. All the gestures are more traditional way how to gesture something. To move something. And the different body postures as well. So if you have a refined female character, you have a body posture that goes with that. And it's kind of from the inside out. So what is the internal character and how do we express that through the external movements and gesture? So that would be on one end. Whereas the unrefined, the course would have different external kind of hand movements and gestures and body. There's a lot of that going on with Balinese. What does that mean? Give us a brief. Some people who come to see this performance I understand some of the language of it. The thing I know about the Balinese dance is the movements moving from head to toe. And the eyes and the head. And the fingers movement. It's kind of artistic. Sometimes more flaking like this. More like just gesture. Depends on the character. How do you train the eyes to do the thing? I think I learned from many teachers. You can learn just from the music you and then like that tongue. Kind of like that. And also you can learn with put your hand one in front. One inside. Show us like one quick so we can all just get into everything. They call it slow dead eye movement. First you focus in the front. And then like look at the side. And then so when you dance you're not going to do this. Just to practice this how you move like this. Like you just have to practice that. Practice that way. And then you can dance high here. Instead this way. Just kind of the form. What is the body in this form? Does your eye get tired from that? Actually I think sometime after rehearsal I feel trapped because of my exercise. Wow. And the teachers really form the students as well. With their hands they form the students. There is so much that we could pick apart in this art form. It just goes so far back. I wish we had the time to do that. But unfortunately we don't. So we encourage people to go and actually see this performance. Do you want to share a little information on the upcoming performance? I think we have a flyer out there. It is on June 2nd and 3rd this weekend. That's right. Kennedy Theater. So the Ramayana. The abduction of Sita. That's the character of Rama there on the front. And you can see here our website with the number to call to get tickets. They're going fast actually. So I would suggest getting your tickets as quickly as you can so that you can get good seats for this. We're so thrilled to have over 50 artists working together on the stage. It's just an amazing collaboration and we're so thankful to Asia Pacific Dance Festival for making this happen. And it's going to be a really special performance here in Hawaii. For us and for the audience that gets to come and see this special performance. So thank you for all three of you for your time here and your wonderful presence in Hawaii bringing your culture here and this amazing collaboration and hope you support the arts by going to see the show and stay tuned for more Think Tech and thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you.