ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the synthesis of music and dance within gendang beleq, the aestheticization of the ensemble for state purposes and the related detradition-alization or secularization of the form, and the religious politics underlying many of the latter points. In addition to being the most popular art form within Lombok and the form that most frequently represents Lombok nationally and internationally, gendang beleq provides a lens to view the broader socio-religious and political developments on the island over the past thirty years. The change of aesthetic properties in the ensemble mirrors the sociopolitical changes of the same period. Gendang beleq was one of the major projects of the Arts Section of DEPDIKBUD. Under the national arts policy known as Pembinaan Kesenian, officials from the 1970s to the 1990s sought art forms to 'dig up' and 'develop' for provincial and national modernization goals and to represent the emerging and contemporary Sasak cultural identity.
