The Proxemics Principal on Angklung Performance and Its Space in the Bale Karesmen Venue

Abstract

Angklung, being one of the most iconic traditional instruments in Indonesia, is the pride and joy of the Sundanese people. That said, this form of musical art should be preserved and passed down to the next generations by teaching it and by performing it to encourage both domestic and international masses to continue to appreciate it. For the performance to impact the audiences, some interaction should be established between the performers and the audiences. Messages of the performed art could be communicated through interpretation and feelings. Moreover, there is a way of playing angklung in which there would be a group of people required to play it. A person could play as little as one angklung to represent one musical note. In the Bale Karesmen venue, this way of playing is played in a segment, where the audiences each get an angklung to play along, in which they would have to communicate with the conductor to know when to ring their instrument. This study is meant to look into an example of an enclosed performance space, Bale Karesmen, in the eyes of proxemics study and interior design. They analyze how the distance and shape of the space play a part in forming a spatial formation according to the social comfort and interaction of the people within that space. Through observation, interviews, and analysis, the author attempts to understand how the space would play a part in the non-verbal communication between the stage and the audience seats.