Gamelan Cudamani was a wonderful performance that I, without this class would not have gone to. I am glad that I was assigned this assignment because it gave me insight into things, I would otherwise not have paid attention to. It first started with a song that had no introduction that I believe served as an intro to the instruments and the roles of different musicians playing the instruments. Next, the speaker came out and gave us context for two pieces by telling us the stories that the musical pieces were made for. My personal favorite of the two was the one about the goddess and the wild boar. Then the performance went on to different pieces choreographed by different members of the group. One of my favorites of those was the one where the men were all seated and singing and making noises with their mouths and it amazed me how they had all been making different sounds at different times but the sound they were making felt like it was coming together to make a song that relied on each noise. I believe this was key to the concept of the show because throughout the show whether they are playing an instrument or hitting their chests or making noises, each piece was needed and was key to their total song and the experience totally.
One thing that I could not get over throughout this performance was the smile on the musician’s faces when they were playing their instruments. They would often 
take glances at the other people playing instruments and smile at each other. These smiles as they shared their culture with the people of the crowd felt like they had a sense of pride in their culture. I felt like their identification with their culture had shown as they felt joy enough to show an external representation of it on their faces. This is also something that I could identify with because I also feel joy when performances of my culture are 
put on or if I am performing things of my culture. I believe that identity is key to the performance of one’s culture. Identity is what makes these performances meaningful and what causes people to identify with the performances just like I did. There may be some that say that the smiles may have been part of the performance or on the script of what these musicians are supposed to act like as they are performing. I do agree that this is possible but just like any performance in any aspect of art, the audience is supposed to analyze it from their personal perspective, and identity is a big part of that also. It was not a coincidence that the smiles were the one thing I kept noticing. This gives a window to my identity in that if you paid attention to the things that have happened in my life, being a first-generation African American, learning of my African culture from my parents, and struggling to hold on to those things as I lived an American lifestyle in this country, You begin to see why the one thing that may symbolize pride in culture is the one thing that stuck with me.