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2001 was a year of consolidation for Anak Swarasanti. We had gained a lot of new players,
and had thrown our energies into working with them and bringing them up to speed on our
repertoire, and had hardly performed at all. But we decided to celebrate the end of the
year by taking part in Santa Cruz's First Night Procession - a New Year's Eve extravaganza
of a procession up the main street in Santa Cruz. We were delighted when the First Night
organizers asked us to lead the parade! The photo above is the view we had at the front
of the procession, with throngs of people cheering us on! We had recruited a lot of friends
to carry our yellow and white banner, as well as Balinese temple flags and umbrellas.
 This
photo was taken in the middle of the procession - two new players, Amy and Liz,
sporting fashionable Balinese headwear. We had played First Night a few years
earlier (back then, the procession had gone the other way down the Mall). In the
background between them you can see Steve, playing reyong. In Bali, the
four reyong pots are typically played by four separate players - very
difficult! We have a smaller group, so we play them in "barbell" formation -
also sometimes used in Bali.
 This
is another of our new players, Greg, with Liz. The beleganjur (marching
gamelan) includes seven sets of cymbals (ceng-ceng) which are played in
interlocking patterns. Greg has a pair of ceng-cengs around his neck. The
crowd loved the crashing sounds of the gamelan!
 Here
is Justine, our other reyong player, looking very happy with the
performance. We had reached the end of the parade at this point, and were
breaking things down and getting ready to pack up. Cecile at right is carrying
her ponggang (a larger and deeper-pitched version of the reyong
which provides the anchoring bass line) over her shoulder.
 Here
are our trusty gong-carriers and flag-carriers - friends of the group who we
had press-ganged into carrying gongs, flags, umbrellas and banners for us.
The ones I recognize are Steve at far left, and Renata and Lee at center and
right, carrying the tall white and yellow temple flags.
Here we are doing our final breakdown. Banner carriers Naomi and Kira
at left. The players at First Night 2001 were Cecile Cruz, Justine
Kragen, Steve McDonald, Astrid Randall, Dan Philips, Vera Diani, Christopher
Willmer, Asleif Willmer, Amy Beal, Ralf Dietrich, Greg Weber, Elizabeth
Torres and Martin Randall.
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