Composition Process: The "Trance" Dance [BoMoH]

The story-tellers of the podcast interviews, when discussing the Bomoh, are vague in terms of detail when recalling this mysterious figure, the culture he represents and the mechanics of his spiritual practice. The Bomoh, as a religious figure and social personality, is shrouded in many forms of intrigue, mistrust, secrecy and shame; these are the sentiments of my Grandparents (the interviewees) whom are noticeably skeptical and ashamed of their part in this story; their embrace of a pagan ritual is an insult to their Christian morality. In one of these component compositions the incomplete and obscure culture and identity of the Bomoh will need to be explored.

The Bomoh is described as a holy-man, a shaman, a witch-doctor, and a spiritual healer. His practices are described as animist (the belief in the spirituality of rocks, trees and animals), a dealer in "charms" (sacred objects in and of the subject of the spell or curse), a practitioner of "black" magic (spells and curses that can be used to injure or kill the intended victim). These concepts come together to sketch a fairly ominous and formidable picture, though with all the striking images that are conjured in this myth, there is a lot of important detail that is missing from this picture. These missing elements include concepts such as: language, religious institution, structure of the rite, the contents of the hut etc. The story-tellers continually reinforce the mystery that surrounds this central figure, thus those unknown elements require a substitution using musical detail.

The chief symbol associated with the Bomoh figure, is the mysterious jungle "hut" in which he lives, worships and keeps his host of spirits. There are other images, symbols and structures that may be used to communicate any general notions an audience may have about the culture of a witch-doctor. Though not all of these motifs are directly linked to this story, these communicable elements may serve to present an identifiable, though remaining exotic and "other", figure of magic and mystery. Some of these clichés and motifs include:

 1. "Trance State"
 2. "Blood Magic"
 3. "Divination"
 4. "Healing"

Of these common notions, familiar to all "magico-religious" rituals, only point "1" has any direct allusions to a musical realisation of the concept. The "trance" is a transcendental state of conciousness in which the practitioner succumbs to an altered state of conciousness by way of excessive exposure to cognitive loops (often in the form of ceaselessly repeating sonic objects, like a drum beat etc.).

And, finally, we arrive at the substance of the musical offering for this composition. In order to represent the power and spirituality and mystery of the Bomoh (shaman), a long form, minimalist, full ensemble, electronic dance music inspired, Trance (dance) work will be composed. Utilising a host of techniques from a multiplicity of genres that will inspire this work, the following musical details will be added to its structure:

 - Percussive loops
 - Trance-style "build-up" and "break down" textures
 - Long form (gradual) timbrel/tempi/textural alteration
 - Spectromorphology
 - Gradual (slow) transformation of motifs
 - Ceaselessly iterative sonic objects

This is a musical structure that may threaten to be over-simplistic and uninteresting. However, it is my hope that in developing a structure of very gradually altering materials, this composition will be surprising and interesting over the span of an exaggerated musical form.