Summary: Collaborations: creative partnerships in music | Margaret Kartomi <strong>The Collaborative War-time Composition of ‘Gending Sriwijaya’</strong> Created by a team of pro-revolutionary artists in war-time South Sumatra in 1945, the song-dance ‘Gending Sriwijaya’ was first performed as an ironic joke at the expense of the Japanese invaders, who were led to believe that its text about the glorious Sriwijaya-Palembang kingdom (7th to 11th centuries CE) was in line with the Japanese ideology of ‘Asians for Asians’. Japanese-employed Palembang journalist and underground nationalist activist - Nungtjik - led the team, asking Dahlan Mahibat to compose the music, Ibu Delima to choreograph the dance, and film/theatre singer/actor Hadji Gung to present its first performance at a function on 4 August 1945, following some pro-Japanese speeches by leaders of the Japanese puppet organisation, the All-Sumatra Advisory Council. Politically, the creative partnership worked because it could surreptitiously promote the Indonesian revolutionary struggle while appearing to work for the enemy. Artistically, the team members built on each others’ cues. The lyricist chose to extol the glories of Sriwijaya to inspire confidence in the revolutionary struggle; the composer matched it with a melody that was playable on the <em>gamelan</em> of the former Palembang sultanate (1690-1873) and the rural gongchime ensembles; the choreographer’s version of the rural female <em>tanggai </em>(long finger-nail) dance with <em>mudra</em>-style movements suggested the Sriwijaya period; and the item’s first singer chose to croon the song with a popular Malay-style band,which in turn led to <em>tanjidor,</em> pop, rock, <em>dangdut</em> and other bands all over Indonesia developing their arrangements of the song.
