‘Dreaming together’: Philly’s Indonesian community celebrates gamelan music, dance

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

Dozens of people gathered in South Philly on Saturday at the Gamelan Gita Santi’s fall concert and food pop-up celebrating the city’s Indonesian community.

Inside the PAX center, everyone from children to adults participated in the gamelan, a traditional Indonesian orchestra made up of percussion instruments. Dancers from Modero&Co, a group focused on traditional Indonesian dance, performed Balinese dances.

Sinta Penyami Storms, founder of Modero&Co, said the group performs dances that represent the rich cultural histories from the more than 17,000 islands that make up Indonesia, which also include the region’s Javenese and Sundanese communities.

“Part of our mission is also providing that connection from Philadelphia to Indonesia,” she said. “It’s important for us to continue to preserve the culture and passing it down to the younger generation. So that’s why this specific program, we involve a lot of young people, from the musicians, the dancers, the volunteers, we would like them to continue what we are doing right now, right? So that way, our culture is never gonna die, even though we’re far away from our homeland.”

Penyami Storms was born in Indonesia and moved to Philadelphia in 1999. She said she’s seen the Indonesian community in the city grow significantly over the past several years.

“From the last Indonesian government census, it was like 5,000 people [living in Philadelphia], I’m sure, right now it’s triple that,” she said.

According to the Pew Research Center, there were 2,000 Indonesian Americans living in Philadelphia in 2019. The city numbered in the top 10 metropolitan areas with the largest Indonesian community in the United States.

Penyami Storms is also a co-founder of the nonprofit Gapura, which co-hosted Saturday’s event.

“Our mission is really to honor traditions,” Penyami Storms said. “We want to empower the community, and part of empowering the community is talking about our cultural traditions and then also dreaming together with the younger generation.”

Aditya Setyawan, co-founder and co-director of Gapura, said it’s impactful to see both Indonesian and non-Indonesian kids playing in the gamelan, taught by Tom Whitman, a professor at Swarthmore College who has studied traditional Balinese music.

“It’s been a positive vibe, because a lot of kids and adults, they’re curious about gamelan,” he said. “And then they come and they register and they play and they love it.”

Setyawan said Gapura tries to hold events every three months so members of the gamelan can showcase what they’ve been learning.

“I know Indonesian culture is not out much,” Setyawan said. “So people [don’t] know about Indonesia, and some people [don’t] know where Indonesia is. So we’re trying to showcase our culture so people know when they’re curious about Indonesia they can see the culture.”

Next year, Gapura is trying to start an afterschool program for kids, Setyawan said, and work with older generations to teach technology and digital literacy skills.