Balinese Dances Culture History In a pavilion near the temple, the dancer meticulously adds the finishing touches to his make-up-a curve to the eyebrow, three dots on each temple, a red spot between the eyes. He gives a last glance to the mirror and moves to his place. A signal and the gamelan strike a dynamic chord. Quivering fingers appear from behind the temple gate, until a fare emerges with painted eyes and a curious smile. The dancer has already lost his personal identity in the dramatic character who cautiously peers from behind the gate, moves slightly forward with hesitating glances, as if he were passing through an imaginary screen in to another existence the spiritual world of the dance.
For the Balinese, the theatre is not a profession. Aside from those who perform music and dancing, the village creates a theatre for the enjoyment of the community. Those who perform on stage by night lead normal lives in the village by day as farmers, fishermen, goldsmiths, woodcarvers, or whatever their vocations. Theatre is seen as an integral part of life. It is at one with the rituals that fasten society. Birthdays, weddings, temple festivals, processions to the sea, and purification ceremonies are all occasions for dramatic entertainment.
The origin of Balinese theatre is a religious one. Just as a temple offering is food made beautiful to present as a divine feast, so a temple dance offers the motions of daily life made beautiful as a gift to visiting deities during temple festivals. Good music, splendid costumes, fines dancing and drama give pleasure both to divine guest and village audiences. Religious dances serve as ceremonial offering and dedication in the temple. Many forms of contemporary drama, such as the exorcism plays, function also as a bridge between the mundane and the Spiritual world.
Because of their religious significance, dances and plays are constantly revived by the community. An adult will have seen certain play hundreds of times there form it is at all important that a drama begins at the beginning and of the end. Often an episode enhanced is only a small part of a very long story. As soon as the play starts, a Balinese recognizes the story an automatically views it in its popper perspective. If a golden deer appears, he immediately knows the story is from the Ramayana, that Sita will soon be kidnapped, but eventually rescued.
Since they know all the tales and dances by heart the people feel perfectly at home watching a performance. They are not on edge to see what happens next, and may stand for hour s t growing tired or impatient. Elaborate props and sets are unnecessary. A conversation between two characters conveys where they n to be at the moment, whether in the near the seashore, or at the kings palace. By a long familiarity with the theatrical forms and by sheer imaginative force, the mind audience creates the pictorial realities of the stage
Much of the sophistication of the Balinese theatre derives from this extraordinary integration spectator and action. Action relates to ns, since the stage is usually a clearing before or near the temple where enthusiastic observers crowd around from all sides. The extend itself if a demonic character lunges too close to the small children who form rows, and shrink back to its original the children, half frightened and half return to their places. It is not surprising to find, in the middle of a climactic scene, a dog strolling out between an actors legs. Such relaxed informalities are very much in tune with the Balinese approach to their theatre, and rarely do they hinder the drama.
The theatre appeals to people of all ages. From the smallest children to grandmothers, who usually care for the babies of the family during the show? For the young, the drama is occasion for flirting and courting in the back a nearby food stands where women shell nut, drinks and sweets everything to make the night pass agreeably. Experienced, dancer view the action from a different angle, scrutinizing the movements of the dance and the quality of the dancers. And the quality of the dancers
The ebullience of Balinese dances gives them an air of spontaneity, yet beneath their finish lays a learned set of motions in a highly stylised dance technique. Each salient gesture has a name, which describes its action in terms of a similar one taken from nature, usually from animals. A flurry of turns may bear the name of a tiger defending himself against mosquitoes. A side step may be named after the way a raven jumps. A tilt of the head may be as a duck seeing a bird in the sky. The shimmering of the fingers as two blue birds moving on a slender coconut leaf. Or an upward glance as a monkey looking for fruit in a small tree. The names are essentially descriptive and have no symbolic meaning except in identifying, in terms of metaphor, the exact character and feeling within a set action.
Like many Asiatic dances, the movements of the wrist and fingers vary tremendously giving the dance of the hands a life of its own, and making it an important criterion of judgment as to the quality of -the dancer. Great variations of level-leaps, runs, lifts and spins so familiar in the Western ballet, are seldom seen in classical Balinese dances, where space is usually partitioned in measured steps with the body bent close to the ground. Rarely do two dancers merge in a single form. Traditionally, body contact was not permitted. In the formal dance style, although the motion of the dancers may be highly synchronized, the dancers themselves remain separate entities and relate to each other through the choreography, usually one in formations of lines and rows.
Those exempt from, this refined style of dancing are the clowns, who are bound to no strict choreography. The Balinese are so accustomed to the stylised postures, dress, and movements of their actors that when a clown appears who obviously has no style at all, he is extremely funny. Witches, animals and demons, also exempt from the ceremonial behaviour of noble humans, have license to adopt hilarious styles of their own and constitute a large part of the comedy.
To everyone introduced to the brilliance of the Balinese stage, costume and headdress seem inseparable from the dance itself. In the capacity of the dancer to identify completely, in attitude and in appearance, with his part, the dance comes alive with a force from within the dance dances. Facial make-up is a stylised facade of the character represented. By putting on a mask, the dancer totally adopts the characters appearance. His immobile face seems to have transformed his entire body into a new shape that is one with the abstract world of the mask. The impersonality of Balinese dances-the unfocused stare and closed lips of the dancer-is at first striking to one accustomed to dances in which emotional expression is given free play. In Bali, the personal temperament of the dancer serves only to express the content of the dance, the mood of the melody, and the rhythm of the gamelan to reveal the life of the dance to the audience. For instance, the Kebyar dancer, who must be extremely expressive to be good, never discloses his own personality but animates the fluctuating moods of the music, and generates sound in the physical form of the dance
Dancing is taught by imitation. A young pupil, usually under ten years old, follows every movement of the teacher who leads him through the dance. After he feels assured of the basic motions, the teacher conics behind him and forces his arms and fingers into the correct postures, tilts his head on the proper accents of the drum and adjusts the position of his body This body-to-body lesson is repeated as often as it takes the pupil to begin to feel the dance, for the dance to enter him. A pupil always learns a particular dance, such as Legong, Baris, or Janger, but never dances in general. He follows the beat of the drum, which dictates the rhythm of the dance. The drummer is the conductor of the gamelan orchestra and leads the changing tempo that guides the movements of the dancer.
Balinese dances and drama cover a wide array of theatrical forms. Most performances are a combination of dance, music, song, and acting. No play is complete without music of some kind, and no dance, even the most abstract, is without story or meaning. Selected here are only a few of over fifty dances active in Bali today. The majority cited are performed regularly for guests, others only during religious ceremonies and all of them zealously supported by the Balinese.
The dances selected for discussion on pages 126-140 are those highlighting the virtuosity and skill of the dancers. They are regularly presented by touring dance troupes. To execute them well involves years of training strict co-ordination and technique, and an intricate relation between movement and orchestra. An exceptional dancer, by adding personal modifications of style to the traditional choreography, elevates the dance to new heights and continues his devotion as a teacher. In the second group of dances, entitled Kings and Comics, the emphasis is upon dramatizing a story. The Vibrant Ritual describes the ceremonial dance dramas that actively relate to religious rites.
One of the oldest of Balinese dances is the Gambuh, which may be one thousand years old. Many of Balis most popular dances were derived or influenced by it among them the Topeng, Wayang Wong, Cupak, Calon Arang, Legong, Arja, and Joged Pingitan. Most of these dances were created between 1850 and 1900, a period of exceptional vitality for dance, under the patronage or rajas and nobles. The Sanghyang trance dance influenced such dances as the Kecak. Several other dances, such as Kebyar, date from the 20th century, created by such great dancers as Mario and Nyoman Kaler.
Dance and drama have given great delight to thousands of tourists, yet have not remained unaffected. Endless commissions to perform have sometimes caused a decline in standards. And the tendency to serve a mixed bag of excerpts, rather than the classic form of a dance, has meant that tourists often do not see the best of this Balinese art form.
Gamelan. In Bali it is easy to know when something is happening. Just listen for the Sounds of the gamelan orchestra, generally consisting of brass kettles, gongs and met allophones. Often in the evenings the softened tones of the music float outwards from a distant village, as if accompanying the chirp of crickets and the croaking of frogs in the rice fields. Follow your ears and you are sure to come upon a dance performance, a temple ceremony or a religious procession, for music accompanies every theatrical, religious and social function. On a road at night you may pass five or six music sessions within ten kilometres. The magic of the gamelan gives the occasion an aura of vibration with its strange metallic energy.
The word gamelan is, strictly speaking, Javanese, though now it has become a general term for the music played by any percussion orchestra, whether Javanese or Balinese. In Bali the word gong is used to describe the many kinds of orchestra. Balinese music has undergone considerable change during its history. Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s the old gong gede was replaced by the faster gong kebyar, which is now the commonest form of orchestra.
A basic principle of gamelan music is that instruments with a higher range of notes are struck more frequently than those with lower ranges. At given intervals, gongs of various sizes mark off the basic line of the music, the other instruments adding their complicated, shimmering ornamentation. Most of the musicians play a variety of instruments of the gang met allophone families, which consist of bronze bars suspended over bamboo resonators. With one hand the player strikes the keys with a wooden mallet, with the other he dampens the key just struck.
At the heart of the orchestra are the two drums (kendang), one of which, the Male, is slightly smaller than the other, the female. The drummers control the tempo of the piece of music. Sometimes using their hands, at other times a round headed stick, their rhythmic techniques are mind boggling. The small hand cymbals (cengceng) accent the faster warlike music. Helping to keep the orchestra together is the steady beat of the kempli, a single small gong struck with a stick. The rich slow tone of the trompong, a set of kettles like the reyong but played by one man, occurs certain orchestral pieces and in the Kebyar dance.
Other instruments that accompany particular dances or drama performances include bamboo xylophones, flutes (suling) and the two-stringed violin (rebab). The shadow play has its own little ensemble consisting of four genders.
Archaic ensembles, still played in a few old villages in East Bali, include the gong selunding consisting of instruments with ion keys, and the wooden-keyed gambang, and finally there is the Jews harp (genggong), one of the worlds oldest instruments
Gamelan instruments are still made in Bali, the leading craftsmen being those of the village of Tihingan near Klungkung, and Blahbatuh.
Most banjars have their music club, sekaa, a male organization with members ranging from eight-year-old enthusiasts to veterans in their sixties. As with the planting of rice, the up keep of temples, and village government, the orchestra clubs are communal organizations in which everyone has an equal share in the responsibilities. Every practicing musician belongs to a music club of some kind. Frequently, these clubs are a prime source of entertainment to villagers who casually gather around the bale gong pavilion where the village orchestra is kept-to listen to the gamelan practice. Some clubs meet only once every five months to brush up on pieces to be used in the coming religious ceremony. Others practice five nights a week, perfecting new and difficult compositions or rehearsing with a dance troupe.
The polyphonic compositions are learned by memory. Musicians seldom use musical notation. The remarkable sense of rhythm in the Balinese people is instilled from childhood. At informal practices, one often sees a baby resting on the lap of his father while he plays. The child remains there, awake or asleep, throughout the session. Experienced musicians say there is no conscious effort to remember learned compositions. They have heard and played them so often their hands work instinctively
For the Balinese, the theatre is not a profession. Aside from those who perform music and dancing, the village creates a theatre for the enjoyment of the community. Those who perform on stage by night lead normal lives in the village by day as farmers, fishermen, goldsmiths, woodcarvers, or whatever their vocations. Theatre is seen as an integral part of life. It is at one with the rituals that fasten society. Birthdays, weddings, temple festivals, processions to the sea, and purification ceremonies are all occasions for dramatic entertainment.
The origin of Balinese theatre is a religious one. Just as a temple offering is food made beautiful to present as a divine feast, so a temple dance offers the motions of daily life made beautiful as a gift to visiting deities during temple festivals. Good music, splendid costumes, fines dancing and drama give pleasure both to divine guest and village audiences. Religious dances serve as ceremonial offering and dedication in the temple. Many forms of contemporary drama, such as the exorcism plays, function also as a bridge between the mundane and the Spiritual world.
Because of their religious significance, dances and plays are constantly revived by the community. An adult will have seen certain play hundreds of times there form it is at all important that a drama begins at the beginning and of the end. Often an episode enhanced is only a small part of a very long story. As soon as the play starts, a Balinese recognizes the story an automatically views it in its popper perspective. If a golden deer appears, he immediately knows the story is from the Ramayana, that Sita will soon be kidnapped, but eventually rescued.
Since they know all the tales and dances by heart the people feel perfectly at home watching a performance. They are not on edge to see what happens next, and may stand for hour s t growing tired or impatient. Elaborate props and sets are unnecessary. A conversation between two characters conveys where they n to be at the moment, whether in the near the seashore, or at the kings palace. By a long familiarity with the theatrical forms and by sheer imaginative force, the mind audience creates the pictorial realities of the stage
Much of the sophistication of the Balinese theatre derives from this extraordinary integration spectator and action. Action relates to ns, since the stage is usually a clearing before or near the temple where enthusiastic observers crowd around from all sides. The extend itself if a demonic character lunges too close to the small children who form rows, and shrink back to its original the children, half frightened and half return to their places. It is not surprising to find, in the middle of a climactic scene, a dog strolling out between an actors legs. Such relaxed informalities are very much in tune with the Balinese approach to their theatre, and rarely do they hinder the drama.
The theatre appeals to people of all ages. From the smallest children to grandmothers, who usually care for the babies of the family during the show? For the young, the drama is occasion for flirting and courting in the back a nearby food stands where women shell nut, drinks and sweets everything to make the night pass agreeably. Experienced, dancer view the action from a different angle, scrutinizing the movements of the dance and the quality of the dancers. And the quality of the dancers
The ebullience of Balinese dances gives them an air of spontaneity, yet beneath their finish lays a learned set of motions in a highly stylised dance technique. Each salient gesture has a name, which describes its action in terms of a similar one taken from nature, usually from animals. A flurry of turns may bear the name of a tiger defending himself against mosquitoes. A side step may be named after the way a raven jumps. A tilt of the head may be as a duck seeing a bird in the sky. The shimmering of the fingers as two blue birds moving on a slender coconut leaf. Or an upward glance as a monkey looking for fruit in a small tree. The names are essentially descriptive and have no symbolic meaning except in identifying, in terms of metaphor, the exact character and feeling within a set action.
Like many Asiatic dances, the movements of the wrist and fingers vary tremendously giving the dance of the hands a life of its own, and making it an important criterion of judgment as to the quality of -the dancer. Great variations of level-leaps, runs, lifts and spins so familiar in the Western ballet, are seldom seen in classical Balinese dances, where space is usually partitioned in measured steps with the body bent close to the ground. Rarely do two dancers merge in a single form. Traditionally, body contact was not permitted. In the formal dance style, although the motion of the dancers may be highly synchronized, the dancers themselves remain separate entities and relate to each other through the choreography, usually one in formations of lines and rows.
Those exempt from, this refined style of dancing are the clowns, who are bound to no strict choreography. The Balinese are so accustomed to the stylised postures, dress, and movements of their actors that when a clown appears who obviously has no style at all, he is extremely funny. Witches, animals and demons, also exempt from the ceremonial behaviour of noble humans, have license to adopt hilarious styles of their own and constitute a large part of the comedy.
To everyone introduced to the brilliance of the Balinese stage, costume and headdress seem inseparable from the dance itself. In the capacity of the dancer to identify completely, in attitude and in appearance, with his part, the dance comes alive with a force from within the dance dances. Facial make-up is a stylised facade of the character represented. By putting on a mask, the dancer totally adopts the characters appearance. His immobile face seems to have transformed his entire body into a new shape that is one with the abstract world of the mask. The impersonality of Balinese dances-the unfocused stare and closed lips of the dancer-is at first striking to one accustomed to dances in which emotional expression is given free play. In Bali, the personal temperament of the dancer serves only to express the content of the dance, the mood of the melody, and the rhythm of the gamelan to reveal the life of the dance to the audience. For instance, the Kebyar dancer, who must be extremely expressive to be good, never discloses his own personality but animates the fluctuating moods of the music, and generates sound in the physical form of the dance
Dancing is taught by imitation. A young pupil, usually under ten years old, follows every movement of the teacher who leads him through the dance. After he feels assured of the basic motions, the teacher conics behind him and forces his arms and fingers into the correct postures, tilts his head on the proper accents of the drum and adjusts the position of his body This body-to-body lesson is repeated as often as it takes the pupil to begin to feel the dance, for the dance to enter him. A pupil always learns a particular dance, such as Legong, Baris, or Janger, but never dances in general. He follows the beat of the drum, which dictates the rhythm of the dance. The drummer is the conductor of the gamelan orchestra and leads the changing tempo that guides the movements of the dancer.
Balinese dances and drama cover a wide array of theatrical forms. Most performances are a combination of dance, music, song, and acting. No play is complete without music of some kind, and no dance, even the most abstract, is without story or meaning. Selected here are only a few of over fifty dances active in Bali today. The majority cited are performed regularly for guests, others only during religious ceremonies and all of them zealously supported by the Balinese.
The dances selected for discussion on pages 126-140 are those highlighting the virtuosity and skill of the dancers. They are regularly presented by touring dance troupes. To execute them well involves years of training strict co-ordination and technique, and an intricate relation between movement and orchestra. An exceptional dancer, by adding personal modifications of style to the traditional choreography, elevates the dance to new heights and continues his devotion as a teacher. In the second group of dances, entitled Kings and Comics, the emphasis is upon dramatizing a story. The Vibrant Ritual describes the ceremonial dance dramas that actively relate to religious rites.
One of the oldest of Balinese dances is the Gambuh, which may be one thousand years old. Many of Balis most popular dances were derived or influenced by it among them the Topeng, Wayang Wong, Cupak, Calon Arang, Legong, Arja, and Joged Pingitan. Most of these dances were created between 1850 and 1900, a period of exceptional vitality for dance, under the patronage or rajas and nobles. The Sanghyang trance dance influenced such dances as the Kecak. Several other dances, such as Kebyar, date from the 20th century, created by such great dancers as Mario and Nyoman Kaler.
Dance and drama have given great delight to thousands of tourists, yet have not remained unaffected. Endless commissions to perform have sometimes caused a decline in standards. And the tendency to serve a mixed bag of excerpts, rather than the classic form of a dance, has meant that tourists often do not see the best of this Balinese art form.
Gamelan. In Bali it is easy to know when something is happening. Just listen for the Sounds of the gamelan orchestra, generally consisting of brass kettles, gongs and met allophones. Often in the evenings the softened tones of the music float outwards from a distant village, as if accompanying the chirp of crickets and the croaking of frogs in the rice fields. Follow your ears and you are sure to come upon a dance performance, a temple ceremony or a religious procession, for music accompanies every theatrical, religious and social function. On a road at night you may pass five or six music sessions within ten kilometres. The magic of the gamelan gives the occasion an aura of vibration with its strange metallic energy.
The word gamelan is, strictly speaking, Javanese, though now it has become a general term for the music played by any percussion orchestra, whether Javanese or Balinese. In Bali the word gong is used to describe the many kinds of orchestra. Balinese music has undergone considerable change during its history. Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s the old gong gede was replaced by the faster gong kebyar, which is now the commonest form of orchestra.
A basic principle of gamelan music is that instruments with a higher range of notes are struck more frequently than those with lower ranges. At given intervals, gongs of various sizes mark off the basic line of the music, the other instruments adding their complicated, shimmering ornamentation. Most of the musicians play a variety of instruments of the gang met allophone families, which consist of bronze bars suspended over bamboo resonators. With one hand the player strikes the keys with a wooden mallet, with the other he dampens the key just struck.
At the heart of the orchestra are the two drums (kendang), one of which, the Male, is slightly smaller than the other, the female. The drummers control the tempo of the piece of music. Sometimes using their hands, at other times a round headed stick, their rhythmic techniques are mind boggling. The small hand cymbals (cengceng) accent the faster warlike music. Helping to keep the orchestra together is the steady beat of the kempli, a single small gong struck with a stick. The rich slow tone of the trompong, a set of kettles like the reyong but played by one man, occurs certain orchestral pieces and in the Kebyar dance.
Other instruments that accompany particular dances or drama performances include bamboo xylophones, flutes (suling) and the two-stringed violin (rebab). The shadow play has its own little ensemble consisting of four genders.
Archaic ensembles, still played in a few old villages in East Bali, include the gong selunding consisting of instruments with ion keys, and the wooden-keyed gambang, and finally there is the Jews harp (genggong), one of the worlds oldest instruments
Gamelan instruments are still made in Bali, the leading craftsmen being those of the village of Tihingan near Klungkung, and Blahbatuh.
Most banjars have their music club, sekaa, a male organization with members ranging from eight-year-old enthusiasts to veterans in their sixties. As with the planting of rice, the up keep of temples, and village government, the orchestra clubs are communal organizations in which everyone has an equal share in the responsibilities. Every practicing musician belongs to a music club of some kind. Frequently, these clubs are a prime source of entertainment to villagers who casually gather around the bale gong pavilion where the village orchestra is kept-to listen to the gamelan practice. Some clubs meet only once every five months to brush up on pieces to be used in the coming religious ceremony. Others practice five nights a week, perfecting new and difficult compositions or rehearsing with a dance troupe.
The polyphonic compositions are learned by memory. Musicians seldom use musical notation. The remarkable sense of rhythm in the Balinese people is instilled from childhood. At informal practices, one often sees a baby resting on the lap of his father while he plays. The child remains there, awake or asleep, throughout the session. Experienced musicians say there is no conscious effort to remember learned compositions. They have heard and played them so often their hands work instinctively
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