This
new workshop has grown out of the Center's successful World
Music in the Schools program in San Diego, and provides the
ultimate cross-cultural experience for the children who participate,
and their parents and teachers. The workshop is now open to other
accompanied children and has been designed to provide a rich cultural
experience for them. For
the adults, there will be special lectures and discussions on such
subjects as traditional teaching methods in the Balinese arts and
public education in Indonesia. We plan field trips to visit, for
instance, a bootstrap project in the most poverty-stricken area
on the island, where villagers are being guided to build their own
schoolhouses, to select the best educated person in the village
to be the teacher, and to introduce education on a grassroots level
where it did not exist before. This particular project has already
produced some quite remarkable results.
The
American children will be able to study the performing arts in tandem
with Balinese children who are learning English, and will experience
first hand on a peer level the similarities and differences in behavior
between Balinese and American children. Their main teachers, Nyoman
Sumandhi and his wife Putu, have many years of experience in teaching
both Balinese and American children. The Sumandhis will once again
be assisted, as they were when they launched the program in San
Diego, by Alex Khalil and his wife Kaori Okado, who are the group
leaders. Both are professionally proficient in Balinese performing
arts and the mainstays of the ongoing San Diego cross-cultural Balinese
program at the Museum School. . In some cases children and adults
will learn together; in others they may learn separately.
The
location in Bali, at the Flower
Mountain Center in Payangan, is safe and comfortable, with familiar
food as well as the opportunity to try new tastes in a supportive
context. All participants will be taken on tour to various interesting
cultural sites on the island, and movies, games, swimming and other
forms of recreation will be provided. We anticipate that all of
the participants will find this workshop to be exhilarating, and
that it will provide a life-changing experience in one of the world's
most beautiful and artistically creative environments.
Many
of the pictures on this page (click for links to larger images)
are from the Sumandhis' teaching sessions with children in San Diego
in the spring of 2000. For more pictures and insights, click on
the link Gamelan Puspa Warsa.
Dates and Cost: Depart Los Angeles August 5, program
in Bali August 7-20, departing for Los Angeles on August 21, arrival
Thursday, August 22. Cost $1,995 (one parent or teacher) or $3,395
(one parent or teacher and one child) from Los Angeles All children
must be accompanied by a parent or teacher, who will be directly
responsible for them during their time in Bali.
Application deadline June 16, 2002.
For further information please contact Alex Khalil:
