Sat., Nov. 8: Balinese Gamelan Music & Dance: Gamelan Dharma Swara

Gamelan Dharma Swara is one of the leading Balinese performing arts ensembles in North America, a collective of musicians and dancers dedicated to the shimmering, percussive sound world of Bali. Founded in New York in the late 1990s, the group has grown into a cultural force—both a rigorous performing ensemble and a creative laboratory for contemporary work rooted in tradition. Their performances are a sensory immersion: bronze gongs and metallophones cascading in interlocking rhythmic cycles, drums crackling with controlled intensity, and dancers articulating stories through precise gesture, fluttering fingers, and eyes that speak as vividly as voices.

While the ensemble studies and presents classical repertoire, it also commissions and performs new compositions, showing how Balinese gamelan is a living practice rather than a museum artifact. Collaborations with avant-garde composers, choreographers, and visual artists have taken Dharma Swara from temple-style ceremonies to experimental stages, including appearances at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and international festivals.

At the core of Dharma Swara’s mission is cultural stewardship and exchange: teaching community classes, hosting workshops with master artists from Bali, and building bridges between New York’s global creative scene and Indonesian tradition. In an increasingly digitized soundscape, Dharma Swara’s music remains defiantly human—communal, intricate, and glowing with the pulse of shared breath and bronze.