New Lines, Shifting Identities: Interpreting Change at the Lingsar Festival in Lombok, Indonesia

I hardly recognized the event. Over the course of twenty years, I had visited the temple t ns of times and was witnessing its festival for the fourth time. But this one was different: many elements, once presented by officials as stable requirements, had changed. Though I knew that the festival, after over three hundred years, had to adjust to contemporary realities to remain meaningful, I was unprepared for the extent of change and believed that core musical offerings, in any scenario, would be preserved and that substan tive additions would be rejected. I was further confounded by officials and friends insisting that, despite the apparent changes, the festival was tetap sama (still the same). I soon discovered that there existed various idioms available to enfold change as perpetuation and to rationalize additions as perkembangan (development) orperbaikan (improvement). This festival, like others worldwide, defines its participants' negotiations with history (particularly tradition), the present, and cultural values.What distinguishes the festival at the Lingsar temple in Lombok (a neighbor isle of Bali) is the conjoining of two ethnic groups: the migrant Hindu Balinese and the Muslim Sasak. Each festival plays out ethnic tensions and contestations over the festival's central position. This locating of the ethnic self requires mediating local sociopolitical realities?which in turn adapt to regional and national developments. Every performance is thus a contextualization of the myriad negotiations of its participants. Though endemic to human life and academic fields, change may be dis orienting and may threaten established identities. My surprise at the changes of the 2001 festival originated in my attachments to earlier findings, and my evolving status and research agenda. I first witnessed the festival as a Master's