Saung Angklung Udjo

Today is Neypi, a national holiday in Indonesia, but mostly celebrated on Bali. Neypi is silence day and it literally means silence. Everybody stays in the house, no air traffic!
But not on Java, here it is just a holiday, meaning a day off from work! Even for us!

We took the opportunity to go to Saung Angklung Udjo in the afternoon, after a relaxing morning!

Angklung are the traditional Sundanese instruments made from bamboo. Udjo is the Angklung music school founded in 1966 by Pak Udjo, who passed away in 2001. His children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren continue his work. Since November 2010 they are rewarded as an intangible Unesco world heritage site to preserve the Sundanese culture.

The daily show starts with some wajang golek puppet plays, just a short demonstration as the official Ramayana version may last seven hours or more!

 

The children who are performing the show go to school in mornings, in the afternoon they learn the Sundanese performance arts like dancing and playing the angklung instruments. As each angklung is one tone, you need several instruments to play a song.

   

The first part of the show with the whole group

 The girl on the right is the great granddaughter of the founder Pak Udjo!

Playing other instruments!

Peacock dance!

The little children first learn to play like this!

Dancing and playing at the same time!

The whole group together!

Towards the end of the show the whole audience plays as an orchestra together. The conductor, a son of Pak Udjo, indicated with signs which angklung had to play. Amazing how quick a whole audience can play like an orchestra in only five minutes.

 

 The older kids played up to 15 or 20 angklungs at a time!

 Goodbye!

A great afternoon!
#ibmcsc indonesia