Organizing team

From left to right : I Gede Yudi Gautama, Hedi Hinzler, Henrice Vonck, I Gede Sanat Kumara and I Gusti Bagus Sudyatmaka Sugriwa

I Gede Yudi Gautama is the leader of Tri Bhuana Giri, one of the most respected gong kebyar groups from North Bali. The group was formed by Yudi Gautama (a.o.) in 1994, with the aim to preserve, revive and expose the music and dance styles of Buleleng (birthplace of gong kebyar). Recently he accompanied the group to the Netherlands to represent North Balinese gong kebyar at the first International Gamelan Festival Amsterdam (IGFA).

Hedi Hinzler is an expert in the Archaeology, Ancient History and Art of South and Southeast Asia. Since 1972 she conducts fieldwork in South East Asia, and visits Bali and Java yearly. In Bali she is engaged in the organization of the Balinese Manuscripts Project. As an Assistant Professor at the University of Leiden she taught performing Arts and Contemporary Art of South East Asia, and of Bali in particular. Being a Balinese puppeteer herself, Hedi Hinzler has a special interest in Balinese performing arts, and has sponsored, co-initiated and participated in many developments of Balinese music and dance in the Netherlands.

Henrice Vonck is a musician, educator and ethnomusicologist, whose dissertation on gender wayang in Tejakula, entitled Manis dan Keras, represents one of the few musicological researches on north Balinese music so far. She teaches at Codarts, University for the Arts in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Since 1987 she is artistic leader of the Amsterdam based Balinese gamelan ensemble Irama, which has a long history of music projects and theatre productions with renowned Balinese artists in the Netherlands. She was coordinator of the first International Gamelan Festival Amsterdam (IGFA), which took place in June 2007 in the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Currently she is program coordinator of the IGFA 2010, and is preparing a new theatre production for Irama in close cooperation with I Made Wianta and I Made Arnawa.

I Gede Sanat Kumara graduated from the Goethe Institute in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1981, and went on to study Graphic Art and Marketing Design at Sydney College, Australia in 1984. Upon returning to Bali, he managed a few hotels at the Marketing Department and Travel Agent Business where he gained experience. From 1997 he brought together a team of internet technology and graphic design experts to establish ABL as a local leader in e-travel and online hotel reservation services, of which he is president and founder.

I Gusti Bagus Sudhyatmaka Sugriwa is a broadcasting official of Radio Republik Indonesia, serving his 32 years as broadcaster and journalist, from radio reporter to Station Manager of RRI Denpasar, Bali, at present. As a journalist he also writes for newspapers like the English dailies The Indonesia Times and The Jakarta Post.
He has been writing and editing many books published by the government, including Bali Arts Festival (1991), The Secret of Development in Bali, Taksu “Never Ending Art Creativity” (1998) and more recently Bali Bomb (2004), besides editing and writing books on various topics such as Bali temples and social welfare.
Due to his knowledge of art and culture, he has been appointed as jury / consultant for various contests of the Bali Arts Festival, including the prestigious Gong Kebyar Festival, from 1995 to 2006. In 2007 he was appointed Vice Chairman of the seven members Supervisory Board of the Bali Arts Festival, chaired by the Dean of the Faculty of Letters of Udayana University.
He currently acts as General Chairman of Listibiya (The Cultural Supervisory Council) of Buleleng Regency, besides being Coordinator of Literature of the Provincial Listibiya, Denpasar. He is also General Chairman of Yayasan Sabha Budaya Hindu Bali (Balinese Hindu Cultural Forum Foundation), Denpasar, Bali, and General Chairman of Yayasan Pelestarian Warisan Budaya Bali Utara (North Bali Heritage Trust), Singaraja, Bali. In 2007 he was leader of the Bali Art Mission to IGFA – the International Gamelan Festival of Amsterdam.

I Wayan Dibia is one of Bali’s most noted artists and scholars, whose expertise include dance performance, choreography, theater, music, and scholarship. He is a senior faculty member and former director of the National Institute of the Arts (ISI), in Denpasar, Bali, and the founder and director of GEOKS, a noted music and dance center in Bali dedicated to contemporary performing arts. In the traditional realm, his specialties include topeng (masked dance), barong (a form of ritual dance), and kecak (dance with vocal chant). A graduate of UCLA with a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies, he has performed and taught in more than twenty countries. He was curator of the first International Gamelan Festival Amsterdam (IGFA) which took place in the Netherlands in June 2007, for which he invited the gong kebyar group Tri Bhuana Giri from Banyuatis, Buleleng. Currently he is attached to the South Bank gamelan in London.

Éric Vandal discovered Balinese music while studying composition at the Université de Montréal (UdeM). In 1998 he joins Giri Kedaton, the university’s gamelan gong kebyar, and has been assuming direction of the ensemble since 2006. In the last few years he has travelled frequently to Bali (thanks in part to grants from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec) to study with I Made Terip and I Putu Putrawan of Munduk. In 2007 he was awarded a scholarship grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). He is presently teaching Balinese gamelan at UdeM while completing his M.A in ethnomusicology, focusing on north Balinese kebyar music.