After a seven-year hiatus, the Palu Bay Festival is back from July 15 to 18, featuring a number of arts and cultural programs.

The Palu municipality, according to Culture and Tourism Office head Sudaryono Lamangkona, has decided to feature the gong tradition as the main theme of the festival.

“We have marketed the  Palu Bay Festival to domestic and foreign visitors,” he told The Jakarta Post recently.

Cultural icons expected to attend the festival are ethnomusicologist Franky Raden, choreographer Madya Patra, and academic Gazali Lembah.

The festival highlights will include a gong-themed horse carriage parade, gong culture exhibition, musical performances, dance performances with the gong tradition, poetry recitals, rebana drum contest on horse-drawn carts a decorated boat race and a culinary exhibition.

Sudaryono said transportation and accommodation facilities in Palu should be more than adequate to support the festival.

A number of hotels, such as the Palu Golden Hotel, Swiss-Belhotel, Grand Duta, Rama Garden and Central hotel, are among those set accommodate the guests.

“Garuda, Lion, Sriwijaya , Wings and Merpati airlines all fly into Palu,” he said.

According to Amin Abdullah, an organizing committee member, the gong tradition does not exclusively belong to Palu and Indonesia.

The spread of the gong tradition extends from Sumatra to the southern part of the Philippines, where gong traditions such as the kakula, kulintang and gulindrang are played by the Maranao and Maguindanao ethnic groups on Mindanao Island.

In Sabah, Malaysia, it is called kulintangan and in Brunei gulintangan.

In Indonesia , the gong tradition, such as the kakula, resembling the talempong, calempong, or canau is found in West Sumatra, kelintang, or kromomg in Bengkulu, kromongan, canang and kelintang in South Sumatra, ogung in North Sumatra, kelintang in West Kalimantan and gong sembilan, or gong duabelas in Maluku.

In Sulawesi, said Amin, the gong tradition could previously be found in Minahasa, North Sulawesi, but has died away. However, in the tradition is still strong in Bolaang Mongondouw, North Sulawesi, while in Southeast Sulawesi, it can be found in Wakatobi and several other areas.

According to Amin, a number of experts regard the bossed gong as a particularly unique to Southeast Asia. The gong tradition in low plain areas, such as in Tolitoli, Buol, Donggala and Palu city in Central Sulawesi, has been linked with the spread of Islam by some scholars.

The gong in the Pamona community in Poso is used to accompany dances, such as the Dero dance.
Organizers of the Palu Bay Festival believe the history and variety of the distinctively Southeast Asian instrument will provide visitors with plenty to see and learn about.

“The festival will become an interesting event as visitors can see the variety of uses and contexts the gong holds across different communities in Central Sulawesi,” said Amin.

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