CalArts Takes Gamelan Back to the Stone Age

To find the Indonesian gamelan instruments at CalArts, proceed downstairs to a large, mirrored studio. Gamelan--the ancient percussion-based tradition from Indonesia--has a strong presence at CalArts, which proudly owns instruments from Bali and a new lavishly ornamented gamelan from Java.

Off to one corner of the room--literally and contextually--is another array of instruments. Welcome to the home of the student-built “stone gamelan,” so called for its unorthodox use of carefully cut pieces of stone in place of the metal or wood materials of conventional gamelans.

CalArts student Alex Khalil is the instigator of the project and its music and dance ensemble, Batu-Gita. “I really hesitate to call it a gamelan,” he said. “There are a lot of people who make things called gamelans which are not functioning as gamelans within the culture. In a way, it is modeled after that, in that we have the instruments on the floor and the sets of hanging gongs, and the sound is very gamelan-like. But it’s really just a percussion ensemble.”

By whatever name, hearing the instruments in action is to recognize anew the sonorous potential of stone. The public is invited to sample the sounds when Batu-Gita gives a free concert of original music and dance at CalArts’ Theater II tonight and Friday.

Large, rectangular gongs hung on frames provide the gamelan’s low tones. These are also manipulated by rubbing mallets along the surface, generating friction that translates into warbling drones. Building the instruments was an evolutionary process: When one gong cracked, it was recycled--re-cut into smaller pieces.

The floor instruments, used more for the melodic contours of the music, are made from quartzite and marble, which have distinctly different timbres. Another sound in the group’s palette is “rattle rocks,” in which smaller stones are placed on the keys, adding a rattling sound to the original tone.

CalArts percussion teacher John Bergamo watched Khalil and other students build the stone gamelan for more than a year. “They’ve got gongs that they’ve made out of marble and granite and these huge slabs of stone that are resonating like you can’t believe,” he said.

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During a noontime rehearsal last week, a small contingent of the 13-member ensemble launched into Khalil’s composition “Three Haiku Three,” a setting for three Haiku poems. The percussionists set up an undulating rhythm, over which Sasha Bogdanowitsch sang the text in slow, nuanced tones, using the technique of harmonic singing, in which the throat is manipulated to eerie shifts in timbre. Meanwhile, dancer Kaori Okado moved across the floor in a slow and measured gesture typical of Indonesian dance. Overall, the effect was one of interactive, slightly out-of-phase layers of sound and motion.

Next, they played Jerry Summers’ tone poem “Lotus Dreams,” one of the several original compositions on this weekend’s program. Simple, echoing tones from the various musicians gather dynamic intensity until the center section explodes into an arrhythmic frenzy before returning to the hypnotically thrumming “theme.”

Khalil, who came to study at CalArts because of its broad approach to world musical studies, formed the ensemble with Okado late in 1994. Batu translates to “stone” and Gita to “sound and movement.”

The two students began experimenting with “phase shifting” in music and dance, using distinct, overlapping rhythms. “It really drives things forward without any of us having to put any drive or emphasis,” Khalil explained. “You can play a line almost placidly, almost apathetically, and if it’s in phase-shift with others, it gives a power to the whole.”

Originally, Khalil was interested only in the percussive use of hand-held rocks, but during a trip to the desert he realized a richer musical potential for rocks. He enlisted other members of the ensemble, and the process of instrument-building began in earnest: cutting, chiseling, drilling, shaping.

“If this doesn’t work out, we’ll be masons,” he said with a laugh. “We have the skills now.”

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Building the instruments was an important step in the process of defining what the sound would be, right down to the tuning--an intuitive arrangement of pitches with little resemblance to the standard Western scale. As ensemble member Edson Gianesi, a Brazilian studying at CalArts, put it: “The idea was not to make a marimba out of rocks.”

Khalil has a crusader’s zeal about his musical quarry. “I never cease to be amazed at how many sounds you can get out of rocks. Even with all of this, we’re just scratching the surface, when you think of how many other kinds of stones there are out there.”

The ensemble has been invited to play in Delhi and at a gamelan festival in Indonesia. Khalil hopes to bring a film crew along to document their activities. A CD project is in the planning stages.

Contrasted with the ancient gamelan tradition, richly represented in the mirrored studio at CalArts, the sight of the stone gamelan is disarming, if not bizarre. But, of course, the materials used here date back even farther than the Indonesian models.

“People think they’re pushing the envelope of sounds that you can hear by creating new ones with synthesis and electronics,” Khalil said. “We’re saying that there is still a lot to be discovered from the oldest musical media--rocks and voice.”

DETAILS

* WHAT: Batu-Gita ensemble.

* WHERE: Theater II at Cal Arts, 24700 McBean Parkway in Valencia.

* WHEN: 8 p.m. today and Friday.

* HOW MUCH: Free.

* CALL: (805) 255-1050.