Nguyen 1

Kiet Nguyen – MUCO 211: Project 2 – Proposal

For this project, I want to put in juxtaposition Sanger’s article “Blessing or Blight?:
The Effects of Touristic Dance-Drama on Village Life in Singapadu, Bali” and Wong’s
“Taiko in Asian America”. Specifically, I want to focus on Sanger’s reading on the Balinese
gamelan using taiko and Wong’s experiences as a lens through which to explore more deeply
the former.
Firstly, as an Asian musician, I have always had a deep appreciation for the arts and
music of “my people” – those from the same continent as mine, as well as their descendents;
those whose homes bloom with burning culture, whether conspicuously or not; those who
understand my experiences in trying to navigate the world as an Asian person of color.
Therefore, I love reading, hearing, and writing about Asian art as I then have a layer of
cultural connection to add on top of my musical one, making it all the more exciting;
additionally, it helps deepen my appreciation for “my” people and “our” art. (I put the
possessive pronouns in quotation marks because as a Vietnamese, I am not in any way
claiming this art as mine, but more expressing that I identify with it more than other arts).
Furthermore, the two articles, albeit both written by music ethnographers who
immersed themselves in the culture to really understand the components to a type of art, have
almost antithetical approaches regarding the style of analysis. Particularly, whereas the
Sanger article possesses a more objective, conventionally “scholarly” tone of voice, Wong
injects in it her detailed experiences playing taiko as an Asian American person and what she
had learned with regard to both taiko and the identity politics surrounding it. Thus, I think it
would be interesting to examine Sanger’s article on gamelan in a more “laid-back” and
narrative style.
Most importantly, however, I find it very interesting that both musicologists have very
different stances when it comes to the authority over the performing of the type of art at hand.
On the one hand, Sanger in her article provides ethnographical evidence in support of tourist
performances of gamelan. On the other hand, Wong leans more on the other side, criticizing
the exoticization of Eastern art by white people. I feel like this would be an intriguing topic to
delve into and to do more research on, as I would like to know how other Balinese people
actually feel about this issue, apart from those in the community in which Sanger immersed
herself. Moreover, I could consider the fact that Sanger, a white person, talks about gamelan
in her article as an outsider to the Balinese community, while Wong discusses taiko as an
Asian American woman taking on an Asian American art, understanding of the issues
surrounding cultural appropriation, racism, and sexism because they are near and dear to her.
For the above reasons, I would like to examine Sanger’s article, as well as just
gamelan in general, through the lens of Wong, and hope to obtain new and thought-provoking
ideas out of this endeavor.