Indonesian Music and Dance

My parents have made bringing Indonesian performing arts to the United States a profession. They teach Javanese music and dance through community classes, school residencies, workshops, and performances. As both their daughter and a member of their performing group, their work has shaped my life in profound ways.

Foremost, my involvement as a dancer in their dance ensemble has connected me to my parents and my Indonesian identity. Living in snowy Minnesota, Indonesia can feel so far away. Learning traditional dances from my mother, I can experience at least some of the things she did when she was growing up. Performing together is also a lovely way for my family to spend time together and bond, especially when it’s so relevant to our background. Even this weekend the ensemble had a couple shows and my whole family was onstage. There are many Indonesian families here who don’t have the chance to learn the performing arts of their culture, so I feel lucky.

My interactions with other people are also sometimes impacted by my parents’ work as music and dance teachers. They have reached out to huge number of kids, students, teachers, and families with their programs. In many situations I am known as “Joko and Tri’s daughter.” Even at my own elementary school such is my legacy, because my parents started a residency there. The founder of the organization for which I intern even took one of my dad’s music classes at the U of M. It’s pretty neat to have those connections pop up, but at the same time it’s a bit weird; my life is my own after all, so will I always be so closely associated to the work of my parents?

Lastly, I have gained a personal sense of globalization. My parents’ work affect the places I was born and raised, which in turn helped shape my identity. My dad’s first overseas job brought him to New Zealand, where I was born and learned English as my first language (my parents would practice by speaking to me in the language, so I never got a full grasp of their native Indonesian tongues). We later moved to Minnesota. Growing up in two English-speaking, “Western” locations, I have the cultural values, mannerisms, lifestyle, the body of any average American college student. However, being a second-generation immigrant and having parents who teach aspects of their native culture, I witness different ways in which people go about discovering their homelands and those of others. I am constantly reminded of how I live in not just in Minnesota, but in a network of interconnected worlds. If my parents did not teach Indonesian performing arts, I would have a different (and perhaps less broad) understanding of my own identity as an Indonesian, American, and a human.