The preceding sections provided a snapshot of how the arts in general and gamelans in particular are integrated into the workings of the Kraton Yogyakarta in the early 21st century. Clearly, artistic resources such as gamelans are integral to palace activities that are directed both toward traditionalist Javanese and Indonesian and international audiences. Concurrently in 2016 during the month of performances at the palace that I documented, another initiative was getting under way with the palace adopting a new approach to more effectively connect itself with and to impact multiple audiences, both local and distant. Palace gamelans are once again important actors in this new initiative.
The kratonjogja.id Website and Self-Representation
The palace is intent on establishing a voice for itself and the power of self-representation in the dunia maya (“virtual world”) of the Internet. Javanese kingship, with its ancient, feudal origins, has had to adapt many times throughout its history to changing social, religious, economic, and hegemonic realities. Now, in early 21st century Yogyakarta, the primary function of the Sultan/Kraton seems to be the safeguarding and perpetuating of the cultural inheritance and spiritual wellbeing of its Javanese subjects. These subjects (and the royalty themselves) are also citizens of the modern nation-state of Indonesia and increasingly interconnected with the world at large through consumerism, tourism, education, broadcast media, and the internet and social media.
The question is: How does traditional kingship establish its relevancy in such times and under such conditions? The short answer is that this institution appears to have decided to embrace the ways of the modern world rather than shunning them. In particular, this involves reaching out to its various contemporary audiences — local Javanese, the general Indonesian public, foreigners — in the spirit of sharing its cultural assets, including its gamelans, and demystifying its practices.
The newest office in the palace’s administrative structure, Tepas Tandha Yekti (Office of Documentation, hereafter “TTY”), is what I consider a crucial facilitator in this palace initiative to rebrand itself as a relevant institution in the contemporary world. The brainchild of Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Hayu (hereafter “Gusti Hayu”), the fourth daughter of the Sultan, and established with his full moral and financial support, it is charged with: 1) improving the operational efficiency of other palace offices through the introduction of computers; 2) providing the world at large virtual access, via the internet and social media, to the cultural riches of the Kraton Yogyakarta (Kraton Jogja 2016, and Karimuddin and Ryza n.d.); and 3) making high-quality audio-visual documentations of palace ceremonies.
In December 2016, TTY launched the official website for the Kraton Yogyakarta (kratonjogja.id), and it has introduced into the palace context the necessary human and technological resources to livestream and archive on YouTube Hadiluhung ceremonies (the earliest dating back to late 2018) on YouTube. Its YouTube channel, Kraton Jogja, also features many major palace celebrations, from presentations of palace performing arts (such as the closing ceremony for an exhibition of palace manuscripts from 6 April, 2019, featuring a 90-minute episode of wayang golek Menak [human dancers in the style of rod puppets]) to the yearly commemoration of the current Sultan’s coronation (from 13 March, 2021, featuring a 150-minute wayang wong [dance drama] performance). Such documents offer the viewer opportunities to witness an array of the palace gamelans described on this website as they are integrated into the life of the palace. All of the videos, whether originally livestream events or productions by one or another palace office, are accessible through the palace’s YouTube channel, launched in July 2015.
The Kraton Jogja website is particularly reliable at covering the activities and projects of Kridhamardawa, no doubt in part because the current head of this palace office is the husband of Gusti Hayu, Kanjeng Pangeran Haryo Notonegoro (hereafter “Kanjeng Noto”). The couple are from cosmopolitan backgrounds; Gusti Hayu having been educated in Singapore, the U.S.A., and England in Information Technology and Business Administration (Kraton Jogja 2020a), and her husband in Indonesia and the U.S.A. in International Development (he worked as a risk management specialist for the United Nations Development Agency, including being posted to Samoa for several years) (Kraton Jogja 2020b). While clearly “people of the world” and technologically savvy, they are also deeply rooted in and respectful of Javanese culture. It is their ability to operate simultaneously in both these domains, along with dependable logistical and financial support from the Sultan, that is facilitating the re-branding of Javanese kingship in Yogyakarta today.
In addition to participating in the realization of many of the ceremonies of palace life as it has always done, Kridhamardawa has launched a number of online projects of its own. Many if not most of these projects speak to the palace mission of sharing its cultural assets primarily with Javanese and Indonesians. During a period of just over a year (April 15, 2020, to June 21, 2021), Kridhamardawa released six albums of gamelan music particularly characteristic of Kraton Yogyakarta practices through YouTube, Spotify, and AppleMusic.1 [In the Online Performance Resources section of this website you will find a listing of the seventy-seven gendhing included on these albums, identification of the gamelan being used for each when that information is available, and links to the YouTube page for each gendhing.]
Kridhamardawa has also launched a number of “tutorial” series on YouTube [the contents of which are also found in the Online Performance Resources section of this website]. The first series focuses on 10 types of instruments found in many palace gamelans but that are far less frequently encountered in non-palace gamelans in the Yogyakarta cultural sphere. A second series focuses on a pan-Javanese vocal repertoire — sekar macapat — that is frequently incorporated into gamelan performance both inside and outside the palace. To date (August 2022) three volumes have been released on YouTube, each including 11 episodes with each episode dedicated to one sekar macapat melody. A third series introduces the repertoire of sulukan (mood songs) used in shadow puppet (ringgit purwa) performances in the palace. These tutorials are presented in Javanese with Indonesian subtitles (Vol. 1 of the Sekar Macapat series additionally includes a second set of subtitles in English) and with cipher notation for the musical examples.
The recording and video releases described above are but a fraction of the total output of didactic and documentary media productions emanating from the Kraton Yogyakarta and circulating through the internet over the past few years. They have been singled out here simply because they involve gamelan performance and therefore illustrate in a most effective way the subject of this study — gamelans and their meaning in a Javanese court setting. I do not consider these videos simply as gifts from the palace intended to entertain and edify interested Javanese, Indonesian, and foreign individuals, even if they may in some instances do just that. Rather, I propose they and all the other recent online material released by the palace be interpreted as part of a rebranding project designed and executed by the palace itself and intended to present its version of Javanese kingship as being attuned with its current social and cultural realities. I believe their primary target audience is younger generation Javanese Indonesians in and around Yogyakarta.
However, the rebranding project involves far more than the internet-based projects mentioned here. As mentioned earlier, over the past 30 years the palace has repurposed a subset of its physical facilities by converting them into museum-like spaces to better facilitate face-to-face encounters between itself and increasing numbers of domestic and international tourists (see above: Daily Performances for Tourists). Since 2019, the palace has organized a yearly multi-day international symposium on Javanese culture featuring papers by Indonesian and foreign scholars to hundreds of attendees. The palace hosts, with a growing frequency, cultural festivals that feature its own performance traditions side-by-side with those of other royal households from around Central Java and Indonesia. There is now a Royal Orchestra (based on the European orchestra model) supported by the palace and the re-establishment of the palace band (comprised of Western wind and percussion instruments).
These two non-indigenous musical organizations indicate the palace desires to be viewed by some audience or audiences as being cosmopolitan in character, even if much of what is performed by these organizations is Indonesian-nationalist in nature.2
