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Balinese
Musics, Dances and Drama |
| History
of Balinese Dances: After the Majapahit warriors subdued Ball in the 14th
century, Javanese mini principalities and courts soon appeared everywhere, creating that
unique blend of cour and peasant culture, which is Bali highly sophisticated, dynamic and
lively. The accompanying narrative for dance and drama is to a large extent based on court
stories from pre-Majapahit Java. Even the Indian epics, another favourite of the stage,
especially the wayang, use Javanese, cornplete with long quotes from the ancient Javanese
Kakawin poetry. So Javanese culture, which disappeared from Java following |
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| Topeng Dance |
Sacred masked
theatre based on the literature of genealogical legends (babad); with wayang |
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kulit, one of the
traditional media of cultural instruction. A set of archetypal masks representing dynastic
figures is danced in sequence, to the accompaniment of gamelan orchestra. |
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| The Vibrant Ritual |
| These ceremonial dances
anddramasdirect ly relate to religious ceremonies by serving as an offering, a prayer, or
an exorcism of evil spirits. |
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Presented with the active
participation of the pemangku (the people's priest and caretaker of the village
temple), they are a dramatic form of contact with the spiritual world, and this
communicative purpose runs parallel throughout a performance. |
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| Legong
Keraton |
| In legends, Legong is the
heavenly dance of divine nymphs. Of all classical Balinese dances, it remains the
quintessence of femininity and grace. Girls from the age of five aspire to be selected to
represent the community as Legong dancers. Connoisseurs hold the dance in highest
esteem and spend hours discussing themerits of various Legong groups. The most
popular of Legongs is the Legong Kraton, Legong of the palace. Formerly, the
dance was patronized by local rajas and held in e puri, residence of the
royal family of |
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the village. Dancers were
recruited from the aptest and prettiest children. Today, the trained dancers arestill-
very young; a girl of fourteen approaches the age of retirement as a Legong performer. |
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| Calonarang |
| It may be the bewitching hour on
the first night of the full moon, when long shadows spread like phantoms on the ground,
that village crowds gather round a clearing near the temple |
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of the dead to watch the drama of
Calon Arang, the widow-witch of Girah. Every Balinese knows the legend of Rangda as CaIon
Arang, a favorite in local folklore. |
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| Barong
And Rangda |
| The Barong is the magical
protector of Balinese villages. As "lord of the forest" with fantastic fanged
mask and long mane, he is the opponent of Rangda the witch, who rules over the spirits of
darkness, in the never ending fight between good and evil. During the Galungan |
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Kuningan festivals, the Barong (there are many
types, including barongket, barong macan, and barong bangkal) wanders from door to door
(nglawang) cleansing the territory of evil influences. |
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| Jangger |
| The flute begins an eerie tune,
and faraway voices chant a strange song that flows from a loud melody to a nearly
inaudible high pitch. Two girl singers appear wearing splendid, floral crowns with
multi-coiored spikes. They advance, allowing another pair to enter, until twelve girls
have filed on stage. |
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Slowly, they kneel opposite each
other, cocking their heads and darting their eyes to accent the rhythm of the orchestra. |
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| Wayang Kulit |
| This is a
puppet show, usually performed in rituals ceremonies. The puppets is made out of a
dried, engrave and graphicaly coloured Cow skin. It shape relates to its character.
There are monster puppet that characterized a bad person and a good person will be
presented with a goodlooking puppet. In every " Wayang Kulit " story
it always tells the audience that a good person always win and the bad one will be
loss.Traditional shadow -puppet theatre, generally based on the Mahabharata and
Ramayana epics; performed late at night on ritual occasions for the pleasure of the gods
and the moral and spiritual instruction of the community. The central player is the
priest-puppeteer (dalang), who animates leather puppets between a screen of white cloth
and |
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coconut-oil lamp, speaking for oil
the characters in myriad voices and languages, accompanied by the very complex and lovely
gamelan wayang. |
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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 |
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nymphs to descendfrom heaven and
dance before the people through the bodies of the girls: |
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| Arja |
| Arja is a Balinese form of
theaterical combining dance ( known as OPERA by the international society ) with its
indigenenous story ,singing and comedy. The characters speak with the highest
Balinese' caste manner both in the dialogue and quoting poetry. What they say is then
translated into day today Balinese common language by the clowns. |
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| Gamelan Manikasanti |
| Gamelan Manikasanti
is a new form of gamelan in Bali today. Manikasanti means "Jewel for Promoting
Peace" where the gamelan in this context is the jewel. Gamelan Manikasanti is a
seven-toned gamelan constructed in 1994 by I Wayan Sinti so that Balinese music of many
different kinds can be played on the same set of instruments. 
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| Baris Dance |
| Just as
the Legong is essentially feminine, Baris, atraditional wardance, glorifies
the man hood of the triumphant Balinese warrior. The word baris means a line
orfile, in the sense of a line of soldiers, and referred to the warriors who fought for
the kings of Bali. There are numerous kinds of Baris, distinguished by the arms
borne by the dancers-spear, lance, kris, bow, sword, orshield. Originally, thedancewas a
religious ritual: the dedication of warriors and their weapons during a temple feast. From
the ritualistic Baris Gede grew the dramatic Baris, a story prefaced by a
series of |
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exhibition solo dances which
showed a warrior's prowess in battle. It is from these that the present Baris solo
takes its form. |
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| Jauk |
| As a classical solo performance expressing
the movements of a demon, Jauk is derived from a traditional play in which all the
dancers, wearing frightening masks of the raksasa or demon type, enacted episodes
from the Kawi versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Like the dramatic Baris,
the Jauk play was prefaced by |
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a series of abstract preludes in
which individual dancers could show off their paces. From these solos evolved the present Jauk
performance. |
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| Oleg Tamulilingan |
| A modern dance choreographed by the late M
ario in 1952, Oleg Tambulilingan has become a popular addition to the repertoire of
dances included in a Legong performance. Originally, it was danced by only one girl
and called Oleg, a general term meaning the swaying of a dancer. Later, a male part was
added to make it a duet, and the dance gained a new theme depicting two bumblebees (tambulilingan)
flirting in a garden. The female enters first. In light, quick steps she 'cles the
stage, fluttering the long silk scarfs that hang from her sides. If the dancer is a good
one, she conveys all the beguiling qualities of a-voung coquette. At one moment, she is
moody and temperamental, her eyes narrow and her lips spread slightly into a seductive
smile. |
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The next, she is scornful. She
turns, snubbing her viewers-only to return as the most feminine creature with a whimsical
air of innocence. |
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| Kecak Dance |
| Contary to belief, the Kecak dance itself
not particularly old. It was probably firsts performed in 1930. A The chorus is
originated from a very ancient ritual of Sanghyang ( trance ) Dance, which is until today
is still performing this ritual dance in some of the villages. During the Sanghyang,
a person is in a state of trance, communicates with God or the acestors and convey
his wishes to the people. |
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The accompaning chorus sit and
chant maintaining syncopation, hynotic tempo, kecak-kecak-cak. Kecak dance tells us the
story of Ramayana. |
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| Barong
Landung |
| On the island of Nusa Penida there lived an
incestuous demon, Jero Gede Mecaling, the Tusked Giant. Once he came to Bali, followed by
a horde of devils. He landed in South Bali in the form of a Barong and waited there
while his henchmen went inland to destroy. The people grew alarmed and consulted a priest
whotold them they must createanother Barong like Jero Gede Mecaling; that alone could
scare away the demon. So they made a big Barong and succeeded in frightening the giant
back to Nusa. Since then, the Barong has been used for driving away illness and evil
spirits. |
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| Kebyar Duduk |
| Like the Baris, the Kebyar is a soloexhibition
dance, but of a more individualistic kind. The Baris portrays the movements of a
generalized Balinese warrior. In Kebyar, the accent is upon thedancerhimself,who
inter pretseverynuance of the music in powerful facial expressions and movement. Kebyar
originated in North Bali around 1 920, but the |
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man most often credited with its
creation is the late Mario, a dancer whose superb performances of Kebyar remain
unparalleled. |
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| Cupak |
| Cupak, a boisterous man possessing a huge
belly, is Baii's notorious glutton. Cupak's story, performed as a comic dance, is more
like an |
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epic drama: it has a kingdom, a
mysterious forest and deep ocean; a villain, princess, witch and hero, disaster,
resolution, and great joy. |
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| Pendet |
| Pendet is the presentation of an
offering in theform of a ritual dance. Unlike the exhibition dances that demand arduous
training, Pendet may be danced by everyone: male and female pemangkus, women
and girls of the village. It is taught simply by imitation and is seldom practiced in the banjars.
Younger girls follow the movements of the elder women who recognize their
responsibility in setting a good example. Proficiency comes with age, and often, t is the
grandmothers who possess the most Man of the grouli. As a religious daqce, Pendet is
usually performed during temple ceremonies. All dancers carry in their right hand a small
offering of incense, cakes, water vessels, or flower formations set in palm leaf With
these they dance from shrine to shrine within the temple. . |
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Pendet, thus, may be
performed as a serial and continue intermittently throughoin,the day and late into the
night during temple feasts |
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Kings and Comics |
| In the following dramas, the accent is upon
the unraveling of a story more than the heightened counterpoint between music and dance. The
gamelan orchestra is always essential, but it is not as commanding as the development
of p ot and the colorful spectrum of personalities included. Tales of passion, historical
romances, love adventures, and military chivairyare popular themes of these dramas. The
majority of the stories are drawn from the medieval courts of East Java-a golden age in
Javanese history when kingdoms were at the peak of their spiendor and of their influence
upon Bali. The actors'costumes, language and gestures derive from the grand court style of
the past. |
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They speak in the classical
language of poetry suitable to well-bred noble families, and dance in the high, refined
manner that signifies the stately bearing of the aristocracy. |
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