ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates regional and national performing arts genres as the popularisation of indigenous and indigenisation of popular forms (Sutton 2002) that are both product and producers of alternative modernities (Gaonkar 2001) in maritime Southeast Asia. It considers alternative experiences of popular performance genres including the analysis of “popular traditions” supported by regional industries, the prominent role of dance and movement, as well as Southeast Asian aesthetics that shape the production of such genres by revisiting western conceptualisations of “popular music” as a field and its global applications. Famous production companies such as the Shaw Brothers in Malaya and Sampaguita Pictures in the Philippines released numerous films that included popular music genres and scenes from traditional theatrical genres. Like traditional theatre forms, these films incorporated both local genres such as asli, inang, joget, and kundiman, as well as global genres such as Hawaiian song, Latin American dance forms, and jazz.
