Abstract: This dissertation is about the cultural work that musicians and dancers do through gendered dance performance to produce place-specific senses of identity. Focusing on performers—musicians and dancers--in Malang, a provincial section in the region of east Java, Indonesia, I argue that local senses of identity, which I call Malangness, are produced through discourses about gendered dance performance, including dance movements, musical sounds, and performers' verbal discourse. Musicians and dancers construct Malangness on increasingly specific levels of locale: regional (east Javanese vs. Central Javanese), intra-regional (Malangan vs. Surabayan), within Malang (eastern, southern, and general), and between individual performers. These differing degrees of specificity are present throughout the entire dissertation as I examine performance practices, performers' perceptions of performance practices, and performers' senses of history. For my analyses, I have selected two east Javanese dances, Beskalan and Ngrémo, and their accompanying music that is played by a gamelan ensemble. I have selected these dances because performers establish a polarity between them and yet also recognize their similarities. At the heart of this polarity are performers' beliefs that Beskalan originated in Malang and Ngrémo originated in Surabaya or Jombang. I focus on the female and male dance modes of these dances: Beskalan Putri, Beskalan Lanang, Ngrémo Lanang, Ngrémo Putri , and Ngrémo Tayub. Either women or men may perform Beskalan or Ngrémo in these modes. This means that these dances may be performed as either 'same-gender' or 'cross-gender' dances. Strikingly, performers did not emphasize issues of gender and sexuality when talking to me about these dances. Instead, they focused on which dance movements, musical sounds, historical contexts, and philosophical meanings comprise these dances as Malangan performing arts. Musicians and dancers articulated these concerns in discussions on tradition, changes in performance practices, interactions between dancers and drummers, and authoritative knowledge, issues I foreground as themes that connect this dissertation. Stepping back from performers' discourse, I comment on their perceptions of changes in the performance of gender, the politics of memory, and the impact of my role as 'foreign researcher' on the archive I have produced.