Javaphilia : American Love Affairs with Javanese Music and Dance

Fragrant tropical flowers, opulent batik fabrics, magnificent bronze __gamelan__ orchestras, and, of course, aromatic coffee. Such are the exotic images of Java, Indonesia's most densely populated island, that have hovered at the periphery of North American imaginations for generations. Through close readings of the careers of four "javaphiles"—individuals who embraced Javanese performing arts in their own quests for a sense of belonging—__Javaphilia: American Love Affairs with Javanese Music and Dance__ explores a century of American representations of Javanese performing arts by North Americans. While other Asian cultures made direct impressions on Americans by virtue of firsthand contacts through immigration, trade, and war, the distance between Java and America, and the vagueness of Americans' imagery, enabled a few disenfranchised musicians and dancers to fashion alternative identities through bold and idiosyncratic representations of Javanese music and dance. __Javaphilia__'s main subjects—Canadian-born singer Eva Gauthier (1885–1958), dancer/painter Hubert Stowitts (1892–1953), ethnomusicologist Mantle Hood (1918–2005), and composer Lou Harrison (1917–2003)—all felt marginalized by the mainstream of Western society: Gauthier by her lukewarm reception as an operatic mezzo-soprano in Europe, Stowitts by his homosexuality, Hood by conflicting interests in spirituality and scientific method, and Harrison by his predilection for prettiness in a musical milieu that valued more anxious expressions. All four parlayed their own direct experiences of Java into a defining essence for their own characters. By identifying aspects of Javanese music and dance that were compatible with their own tendencies, these individuals could literally perform unconventional—yet coherent—identities based in Javanese music and dance. Although they purported to represent Java to their fellow North Americans, they were in fact simply representing themselves. In addition to probing the fascinating details of these javaphiles' lives, __Javaphilia__ presents a novel analysis of North America's first significant encounters with Javanese performing arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. An account of the First International Gamelan Festival, in Vancouver, BC (at Expo 86), almost a century later, bookends the epoch that is the focus of __Javaphilia__ and sets the stage for a meditation on North Americans' ongoing relationships with the music and dance of Java. Fragrant tropical flowers, opulent batik fabrics, magnificent bronze gamelan orchestras, and, of course, aromatic coffee. Such are the exotic images of Java, Indonesia's most densely populated island, that have hovered at the periphery of North American imaginations for generations. Through close readings of the careers of four "javaphiles"—individuals who embraced Javanese performing arts in their own quests for a sense of belonging— Javaphilia: American Love Affairs with Javanese Music and Dance explores a century of American representations of Javanese performing arts by North Americans. While other Asian cultures made direct impressions on Americans by virtue of firsthand contacts through immigration, trade, and war, the distance between Java and America, and the vagueness of Americans' imagery, enabled a few disenfranchised musicians and dancers to fashion alternative identities through bold and idiosyncratic representations of Javanese music and dance. Javaphilia 's main subjects—Canadian-born singer Eva Gauthier (1885–1958), dancer/painter Hubert Stowitts (1892–1953), ethnomusicologist Mantle Hood (1918–2005), and composer Lou Harrison (1917–2003)—all felt marginalized by the mainstream of Western society: Gauthier by her lukewarm reception as an operatic mezzo-soprano in Europe, Stowitts by his homosexuality, Hood by conflicting interests in spirituality and scientific method, and Harrison by his predilection for prettiness in a musical milieu that valued more anxious expressions. All four parlayed their own direct experiences of Java into a defining essence for their own characters. By identifying aspects of Javanese music and dance that were compatible with their own tendencies, these individuals could literally perform unconventional—yet coherent—identities based in Javanese music and dance. Although they purported to represent Java to their fellow North Americans, they were in fact simply representing themselves. In addition to probing the fascinating details of these javaphiles' lives, Javaphilia presents a novel analysis of North America's first significant encounters with Javanese performing arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. An account of the First International Gamelan Festival, in Vancouver, BC (at Expo 86), almost a century later, bookends the epoch that is the focus of Javaphilia and sets the stage for a meditation on North Americans' ongoing relationships with the music and dance of Java.

Transnational economic integration has been described by globalization boosters as a rising tide that will lift all boats, an opportunity for all participants to achieve greater prosperity through a combination of political cooperation and capitalist economic competition. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has championed such rhetoric in promoting the integration of China, Southeast Asia’s formerly socialist states, and Thailand into a regional project called the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). But while the GMS project is in fact hastening regional economic integration, Jim Glassman shows that the approach belies the AD's idealized description of "win-win" outcomes. The process of "actually existing globalization" in the GMS does provide varied opportunities for different actors, but it is less a rising tide that lifts all boats than an uneven flood of transnational capitalist development whose outcomes are determined by intense class struggles, market competition, and regulatory battles.

Glassman makes the case for adopting a class-based approach to analysis of GMS development, regionalization, and actually existing globalization. First he analyzes the interests and actions of various Thai participants in GMS development, then the roles of different Chinese actors in GMS integration. He next provides two cases illustrating the serious limits of any notion that GMS integration is a relatively egalitarian process - Laos' participation in GMS development and the role of migrant Burmese workers in the production of the GMS. He finds that Burmese migrant workers, dam-displaced Chinese and Laotian villagers, and economically-stressed Thai farmers and small businesses are relative "losers" compared to the powerful business interests that shape GMS integration from locations like Bangkok and Kunming, as well as key sites outside the GMS like Beijing, Singapore, and Tokyo. The final chapter blends geographical-historical analysis with an assessment of uneven development and actually existing globalization in the GMS.

Contents Preface CHAPTER 1: A Tale of Two Expos CHAPTER 2: Roots of American “Javas”: The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition CHAPTER 3: Java to Jazz: Eva Gauthier CHAPTER 4: “To Make Ourselves Complete”: Stowitts CHAPTER 5: Man(tle Hood), the Unknown CHAPTER 6: More Western than It Sounds: Lou Harrison CHAPTER 7: Javaphilia, Then and Now Appendix I: The Tuning of the 1893 Gamelan Appendix II: Javanese Kraton, Names, and Titles Notes References Index Through close readings of the careers of four 'javaphiles' - individuals who embraced Javanese performing arts in their own quests for a sense of belonging - Javaphilia explores a century of American representations of Javanese performing arts by North Americans