Polyphemus
Ensemble

Born of the encounter between Franco-Lebanese percussionist Wassim Halal and eight musicians from the Balinese gamelan Puspawarna, Polyphème explores a lush, sophisticated and resolutely hybrid sound universe. This project highlights the innumerable potentialities of the gamelan, this monumental collective instrument, playing on precious textures and embedded polyrhythms. Through an original and fertile dialogue, the Arab tradition, embodied by Wassim Halal's darbuka, blends intimately with the sounds of the Balinese gamelan. Polyphème's repertoire is made up of original creations and improvisations revolving around notions of rhythm and temporality, immersing the audience in a magnetic universe of sound.
The performances, driven by spellbinding leitmotifs, weave hypnotic patterns of dialogue between darbuka, gongs and metallophones. More than a simple encounter between two musical traditions, Polyphème gives birth to a common language, built on complex architectures and original sound materials. Pulsed by hallucinatory rhythmic variations, its compositions blur geographical and idiomatic boundaries, enriching and questioning traditions to open up new horizons." 

Dewa Alit
Traditional gamelan musician, composer

Born into a family of artists in the village of Pengosekan in Bali, Dewa Alit grew up immersed in Balinese music from an early age. His father Dewa Nyoman Sura and older brother Dewa Putu Berata were his most influential gamelan teachers. He began performing at the age of 11, and by 13 was playing in his village's adult group, Tunas Mekar Pengosekan. From 1988 to 1995, he played in the internationally renowned Ubud village Gamelan Semara Ratih, and toured internationally.
As a composer, Dewa Alit is widely recognized as the leading figure of his generation in Bali. His "Geregel" (2000) was so influential that it was the subject of a 50-page review in Wayne Vitale's Perspectives on New Music - Winter 2002. One of his compositions written for the Boston-based gamelan group Galak Tika, Semara Wisaya, was performed at New York's Carnegie in 2004, and another, Pelog Slendro, was presented at the Bang on a Can Marathon in June 2006. His compositions for non-gamelan ensembles include music for MIT's Gamelan Electrika, Talujon Percussion (USA) and Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt, Germany). Dewa Alit founded his own gamelan group in 2007, Gamelan Salukat, seeking a more direct way to express his approach to new gamelan music, and performing on a new set of instruments tuned and designed by himself. As a collaborator, Dewa Alit has worked with musicians and dancers from all over the world. These include a contemporary theater production, Théâtre Annees Folles (director: Alicia Arata Kitamura, Tokyo), butoh dancer Ko Murobushi, contemporary dancers Min Tanaka and Kaiji Moriyama, and noh master Reijiro Tsumura. Dewa Alit was the gamelan director in Evan Ziporyn's opera "A House in Bali" with his Gamelan Salukat, and toured with "Bang on a Can All-Stars" in the USA in 2009 and 2010. He has been regularly invited to teach and compose outside Bali, notably at the University of British Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Helena College in Perth.
- www.dewaalitsalukat.com/