The Bali 1928 Project includes a series of film screenings, seminars, exhibitions, panel discussions, and multimedia presentations. These usually focus not only on the research process and results, but also on broader issues involved with cultural repatriation, and the remarkable things that can happen as the old ways rejoin the new.
Please see the Contacts page if you have questions or are interested in creating or hosting a Bali 1928 event for your campus or organization.
2024 in Bali & the U.S.
May–August. Bali 1928 & Library of Congress-to-Bali Repatriation Project research, translation, and archival video editing and dissemination activities throughout Bali.
Planning for January 2025 National Library Singapore: multimedia installation from the Bali 1928 Archive including our curated collection of 1930s Bali films and related music recordings from Odeon and Beka 1928-29. For the exhibition documenting the visit by four pioneering Singapore painters to Bali in 1952 anchored by photographs taken by Liu Kang during the trip.
October 2024. Panelist for Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) Workshop: Holding Our Own: Strategies for sustainability and advocacy in Archives. At University of California, Los Angeles and on Zoom.
June 2024. Talk & multimedia presentation for the Bali 1928 Archive at STIKOM Bali, Denpasar, hosting a visit & workshop for members of the international organization DeCoSEAS ‘Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives’.
2023 in Bali
January–April & August–November. Library of Congress-to-Bali Repatriation Project research and dissemination activities throughout Bali.
2022 in Bali
June–September. Restoration and editing newly laser-scanned 1930s film footage by Colin McPhee, Miguel Covarrubias, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, Jane Belo, and Rolf de Mare with Claire Holt.
Ongoing research and writing on early 20th-century ritual performance masks in collaboration with dalang and topéng performer I Ketut Kodi.
2021 in New York
September 3. “Allan Evans: Life of a Sound Archaeologist (April 4, 1956–June 6, 2020)”, celebrating the life and mind of Allan Evans. At Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn, New York and via live stream. Video of the recorded event can be viewed on Vimeo at: https://vimeo.com/592378387/b4a7a5cfd0?fbclid=IwAR2m70f3-8ug5VHpqhzeSnucQNsQhQIAr_8goGCAnJ2ny1EHLzft-Jkk_-Y.
2020 in Bali
January–March. Research among centenarians focusing on 1930s films shot by Gregory Bateson, Jane Belo, and Rolf de Maré with Claire Holt.
February 9. Sinema Bali 1928 presentation on “Telescopic Views of Nature and Culture in 1930s Bali” for university students at the venue Vehicle for a Balinese Living Environment in Renon.
February 27. Sinema Bali 1928: “Balinese Mysticism and Magic” with speakers Edward Herbst and I Déwa Gedé Windu Sancaya at Bentara Buydaya Arts Center in Ketewel – for an audience of university students and faculty.
2019 in Bali
January, May–July. Research among centenarians and other elders focusing on 1930s film footage shot by Colin McPhee, Miguel Covarrubias, and Rolf de Maré with Claire Holt.
2018 in Indonesia
October 12. Sinema Bali 1928 presentation for public high school students at the MiniKino Film Festival in Denpasar.
November 5. “Reflections from the Anthropocene” for international seminar on “Innovation and Creativity in the Arts,” ISI Indonesian Institute of Arts in Surakarta, Java.
November 19. “Space and Place of Balinese Traditional Performing Arts” seminar and Bali 1928 film screening for architecture students and faculty at Warmadewa University, Bali.
November 24. Sinema Bali 1928 presentation at the Karangasem World Cultural Village Festival, Jungutan village, East Bali.
March-April 2018 – Presentations in Australia
March 27, Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, University of Sydney – “Bali 1928: Gender, Cross-dressing and Androgyny in 1930s Archival Films of Balinese Dance-Drama”
March 28, Musicology Colloquium Series, Sydney Conservatorium of Music – “Reviving Early Twentieth-Century Balinese Vocal Styles through the Music Recordings of 1928”
March 29, University of Sydney – Postgraduate seminar on ethnography and ethics, repatriation and re-conceiving cultural history
April 3, Sydney Conservatorium of Music – “Research, Rediscovery, and Repatriation of Local Narratives through the Music Recordings and Films of Bali, 1928–1930s” in the Alfred Hook Lecture Series as keynote speaker for a two-day symposium on “Music in Culturally Diverse Societies,” with participants from Australia, the United Kingdom, and Japan
April 5, Monash University, Melbourne – Herb Feith Foundation lecture: “Repatriation, Research and Rediscovery of Local Narratives through the Music Recordings and Films of Bali, 1928–1930s”
2017 in Bali
June–September 2017 – Library of Congress to Bali Repatriation Project – public screenings, seminars and presentations of the films and photographs by Gregory Bateson and Jane Belo made in Bali between 1931 and 1939 along with corresponding content and contextualization from the field notes of Margaret Mead.
Also, Sinema Bali 1928 film screenings and seminars are taking place at Udayana University and on tour to cultural organizations and village and banjar performance clubs throughout Bali.
2015-2016 in Bali and the U.S.
November 2016 – Society for Ethnomusicology panel chaired by Edward Herbst: “Bali 1928 Repatriation Project: Collaborative Strategies, Challenges, Accomplishments and Future Initiatives.” Washington, D.C., co-hosted by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings & George Washington University.
October 2016 – Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City: presentation on “Bali 1928: Gender, Cross-dressing and Androgyny in Archival Balinese Film” by Edward Herbst for the 40th anniversary of the festival. http://www.amnh.org/explore/margaret-mead-film-festival/dialogues
October 2016 – Remarks by Edward Herbst at the opening of the exhibition “The Storytelling Art of Bali” at the Consulate of Indonesia, New York City.
August 2016 – Official opening of the multimedia Bali 1928 Archive at STIKOM Bali (IT Institute), Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia.
May 2016 – Undiksha University, Singaraja, Bali: Sinema Bali 1928 film screening and seminar.
April 2016 – Indonesian Institute of Arts (ISI-Denpasar): Sinema Bali 1928 film screening and seminar.
April 2016 – Sanggar Balerung Mandera Srinertya Waditra, Peliatan, Bali: Sinema Bali 1928 film screening with discussion.
March 2016 – Bali 1928 photo exhibition at Rio Helmi Gallery, Ubud, Bali, “Photographic Images from the Beginnings of Bali’s Modern History,” including video installation & talks by Edward Herbst, Rio Helmi and Marlowe Bandem.
July 12, 2015 – Bentara Budaya Arts Center, Bali – seminar, concert and public launch of the five-volume CD/DVD sets included Anthony Seeger, founding director of Smithsonian Folkways and director emeritus of UCLA’s Ethnomusicology Archive.
February 2015 – Indonesian Institute of Arts (ISI-Denpasar): “Research Methodologies for Reviving the Diversity of Bali’s Arts and Culture.”
2012-2015 – Multimedia lecture-presentations on the Bali 1928 Repatriation Project:
University of California, Los Angeles, Herb Alpert School of Music
Smithsonian Freer Museum, “Performing Indonesia Conference & Festival,” Washington, D.C.
University of Amsterdam “Conference on Cultural Musicology,” Holland
“International Festival & Conference for North Balinese Culture,” Singaraja, Bali
Stanford University’s “Reactions to the Record Symposium”
UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California, Riverside
University of California, Berkeley
Pomona College
Wesleyan University
Bates College
Eastman School of Music