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Sang
Hyang Dance
In the temple, two girls
kneel before a brazier of smoking incense.
The pemangku priest makes offerings
to the deity of the temple, requesting
protection for the village during the
trance ceremony. Behind the girls are
seated a group of women who chant the
Sanghyang song, which asks the
celestial nymphs to descendfrom heavenanddancebeforethepeople
through the bodies of the girls
 :
Fragrant
is the smoke of incense, The smoke that
coils and coils upward Toward the home
of the three divine ones. We are cleansed
to call the nymphs To descend from heaven
..... Beautiful in their bodices of
gold ...
With eyes closed, the
girls rock back and forth above the incense
until they fall down fullyintrance.The
attending women putflowered crowns upon
their heads and lift them to the shoulders
of male Detainers who carry them to the
place where they are to dance (see pages
1 0- 1 1 ). Set upon the grouna between
the female choir and male chorus, the
little dancers sway listlessly in a dreamy
version of the Legong. Their movements
coincide automatically although their
eyes never open during the entire performance.
When the chanting ceases, girls fall to
the ground in a swoon. They are brought
out of trance by the pemangku, who
prays beside them and blesses them with
holy water.
Described
here is Sanghyang Dedari, a ritual
dance where it is believed a divine
spirit temporarily descends to a village
and reveals itself through the entranced
dancers. Sanghyang is the title
for a deified spirit and means "The
Revered One" or "Holiness";
Dedari means "Angel".
The
girls dancing as "Revered Angels"
are always underage, for a virgin child
is considered holy.There are other forms
of the Sanghyang trance dance as well.
In Sanghyang Jaran, an entranced
boy (or priest) dances on a horse, jaran,
represented by a hobbyhorse. He
dances around a bonfire made from coconut
husks. If the Sanghyang song
leads him, he dances through the fire.
Mountain villages near Kintamani perform
the Sanghyang Deling, where puppets
dance suspended on a string between
two poles manipulated by children
Sanghyang
dances developed from the essential
religious function of maintaining the
health and well-being of the village.
They are performed to exorcise evil
spirits that may be infesting the community
in the form of sickness or death. The
boys and girls selected to be Sanghyang
dancers are highly regarded bythe
community and are exempt from certain
village responsibilities. The feats
they perform while dancing are accepted
as a medium of spiritua expression,
since the dancer is thought to be possessed
by a deity. The Sanghyang Dedari
dancers have never had any dancing lessons
In normal life, they cannot remember
nor repeat the motions they enact while
in trance. Nor can a Sanghyang Jaran
dancer normally walk on fire.
So
intriguing to the island visitor, trance,
as. an elevated state of consciousness,
is part Balinese life and is viewed as
quite natural by the people. An entranced
person believed communicating with a divine
presence is respected as holy and is left
free to express himself under a directive
influence, usually that of a priest,The
Balinese are careful never to let one
entranced get out of hand. There are always
guardians from the village who stand by
during a trance ceremony to exercise control
should it be needed.
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