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In his book, A House in Bali, Colin McPhee described the fragile, chalkwhite faces of legong dancers as imbued with sexless calm - hounting, enigmatic, mysterious. Aficionados vehemently discuss the merits of particular legong dancers for hours. |
Arja
This Balinese folk-opera, accompanied by flutes and metallophones,
has been compared to Western-style musical comedy with overtones of grand
opera. Lines are both spoken and sung, and there's a good deal of improvisation
to suit the mood of the audience. Arja's basically tragic themes are derived
from the classical romances of the medieval kingdoms of East Java, as well
as from Chinese love plays.
Developed around 1880 as an all-male dance
drama, with homely middle-aged actors taking on female roles, today the
leading players are royalty such as the prince (ratu), important
members of the court such as the prime minister (patih), plus their
attendants (condong). A performance of arja, which seldom
begins before midnight, is a momentous occasion in a village.
Being a story about the jaded nobility, the
movements and steps are very stylized and courtly. The character Galuh
is impeccably solemn and dull, Limbur is silly, the Desak is an outrageous
comic. Arja drips with moaning, syrupy melodrama and sorrow. Its
plots often are difficult to follow because the dialogue and songs are
chiefly in Kawi.
The lovers-in spite of all the misery-are
always reunited in the end and live happily evermore. The clowns punctuate
the drama with their off-color jokes and slapstick comedy and translate
the classical Kawi into Low Balinese for the benefit of the unlearned crowd.
Baris
The baris is a dignified pre-Hindu ritual dance performed
at festivals and ritual feasts. While the legong is the representative
feminine dance, the baris is the basic dance that shows best all
the prowess and ferocity demanded of male roles. The synchronization between
the dancers and the gamelan gong is spellbinding; as the orchestra
must be precisely attuned to the warrior's changing stances, moods, and
tactics. The name baris means "on line in military formation."
Although at one time the best baris
performers were middle-aged men, the dance is now the domain of young boys.
Originally a war dance, the baris was later adapted to the themes
from the romantic Arjuna Wiwaha tale, using dramatic dialog to accompany
the movements. In this version, the noble young warrior prepares for battle.
There are heroic poses, expressive faces, sham battles, duels, violent
music. With mercurial movements, the baris dancer's whole body is
alive and quivering with controlled yet tense action. He goes through all
the emotions-ferocity, passion, alertness, pleasure, rage, tenderness,
compassion, love-of a chivalrous nobleman.
The frenetic music grows more and more violent,
the dancers raising themselves trembling on their toes and scowling and
cursing at the enemy. Baris can talk but not sing. The kris
is drawn and the foes execute a violent stylized battle. Watching, you
can see why the baris has been called one of the most manly and
passionate dances in the world.
There are some 20 different forms, each named
after an item of clothing the dancers wear or a weapon they carry. In the
baris pendet, dancers carry an offering. One of the oldest forms,
baris gede (or baris upacara) was initially used to exorcise
evil from a temple or was performed at religious festivals, cremations,
and feasts in un-Javanized Balinese villages.
Typical of the most masculine aspects of
Balinese life, the traditional baris gede is staged with as many
as 60 men. A modernized version, baris pendet, consists of heroic
plays performed in a formalized dance-pantomime with dialogue and singing.
This native dance can be seen in Sanur, Tabanan, Ubud, and in the mountain
villages of the Batur region.
Barong
The barong is a dance pantomime of a fantastic dragonlike
holy animal, the barong, in pitched battle against the machinations
of the menacing witch Rangda. Charged with magic, the drama functions as
a spiritual purgative for a village, but it has been mostly preempted by
the tourist industry.
Today at least 20 barong groups perform
on Bali, and the dragon's appearance can vary radically from one to the
next. The barong, a beast of unknown origin, manifests itself in
many forms: as a tiger, it is barong macan; as a lion, barong
singha; as a wild boar, barong bangkal; as an elephant, barong
gajah; as a cow, barong limbu.
On the surface, the dance-drama seems to
be about the momentous confrontation between good and evil. But, as de
Zoete and Spies pointed out, "to express the fight between Barong
and Rangda in terms of good and evil is to miss the point." The function
of each character is morally ambiguous, not as clear-cut as in the Judeo-Christian
world. One cannot project an ethical interpretation on the play. On Bali,
the actions of Barong and Rangda have cosmic repercussions that affect
all Balinese, whose role is simply to help maintain balance.
In ritual life, the barong personifies
the guardian spirit of the village, defending mankind with white magic.
Belonging to the "right" side, he is the protector of humanity
treated with the utmost respect and consideration. The most powerful of
all is the famous "Black Barong" of Singgi-a kampung near
Sanur-made from the black feathers of a rare bird.
By far the most popular and holiest form
is the barong ket, a huge and frightening lionlike creature with
feathers and bells all over its body, popped-out eyes, clacking jaws, a
hollow, swaying back, and a long black beard decorated with flowers. Strength
is concentrated in the beard. Its body is decorated with gilded leather,
spangled with glass and mirrors, its fur coat made of chicken feathers
or pineapple plant fibers. Cloth strips and bells hang from its animated
tail.
This awkward, shaggy creature resembles the
demon-head (bhoma) above the entrance to Balinese temples; see a
famous example at Goa Gadjah near Bedulu. The face is also a popular woodcarving
motif. See the excellent collection of barong masks in Denpasar's
Bali Museum.
Manipulated by two highly trained men who
occupy the front and hindquarters of a bamboo frame, the barong<\#213>s
paws are two pairs of human feet. The men can make the barong wiggle
its rear end, stretch and contract like an accordian, amble around playfully
and coquettishly while savagely snapping its jaws.
The men's skill can make it appear as if
the barong is acting under its own power, taking the swaybacked
beast through comic yet very complex and synchronized dance movements which
cause people to laugh-but not too loud.
The mask of this sacred character is thought
to contain awesome spiritual power; it's kept carefully guarded in a special
storage building (gedong) with other holy props, protected with
charms and swathed in magic cloth that shields its powerful vibrations.
The consecrated mask is stored awaiting the occasion when it will come
to life at a temple's anniversary feast, go to visit far-off temples, or
be led through the village to accept offerings whenever disease, death,
and witchcraft are gaining the upper hand.
Offerings are always made to it during Galungan,
and the barong is taken out only when the pedanda or pemangku
sprinkles it with holy water to prevent it from doing harm. Whenever a
barong mask is moved for any reason, villagers will form a splendid
procession to accompany the adored creature, holding a white parasol above
its head to honor it. At each household doorway, the high-spirited barong
obligingly dances and snaps its jaws to clear the air of demons.
The climax of the stage play comes when the
barong confronts Rangda, the ugly, lolling-tongued, pendulous-breasted
Supreme Witch-evil incarnate, the personification of all negative, destructive
powers. The barong<\#213>s followers attack Rangda with real
kris only to find their fury turned against them under Rangda's
wicked spell.
In a trance-state, possessed by Rangda's
power, they attempt to plunge their weapons into their own chests in a
fit of suicidal violence. But in the end the power of the right side proves
stronger-the barong makes them invulnerable so the kris have
no effect.
Incredibly, none of the participants wound
themselves. As the men convulse on the ground, a pemangku brings
them out of trance before they can injure themselves. These magico-religious
performances serve as a powerful exorcism of black magic both for the players
and the onlookers.
In another version, barong landung,
the barong is in human shape in the form of a giant doll. Used for
dispelling evil spirits and sickness, barong landung characters
have their origins in the legend of Jero Gede Mecaling, the fanged monster
of Nusa Penida. Barong landung is most likely to be seen in street
performances during Galungan and Independence Day and only in southern
Bali and on the small offshore island of Serangan.
The ideal venue for a barong performance
is open-air in the middle of the road, but in today's Bali a shortened,
watered-down version of the "Barong And Kris Dance" is put on
for tourists. The players in it are still in a trance, but not such a deep
trance. With minimal dialogue and infused with slapstick humor, the dance
is not as intense nor as long as sacral performances-lasting only an hour
or so. See it in big performance halls in Batubulan where no less than
three troupes present it simultaneously every morning at 0900.
Calon Arang
Though it has many variations, this dance-drama is essentially
an act of exorcism against leyak (witches). Calon arang combines
acting, singing, comedy, tragedy, and classic theater, combined with elements
of the wistful legong. It is backed by a full orchestra augmented
with long bamboo flutes.
Only a few dalang are willing to perform
the shadow puppet version as they fear the consequences of inviting leyak
to the show, a gesture that is deemed necessary. The perfect setting for
this magic play is on the night of the full moon casting shadows on the
temple roofs, palm trees, and on the clearing where the drama takes place.
The main character is Rangda who takes the
form of an old widow, Calon Arang. Rangda is the bloody-fanged Queen of
the Underworld, whose power is an ever-present danger. She claws at the
air with dreadful, knife-like fingernails, her voice alternating between
a piteous mutter and a deep-voiced, moaning growl. Her sawdust-filled breasts
sag, her pop-eyes stare, her flame-like tongue lolls wickedly beneath a
row of sharp upper incisors, and a necklace of human entrails hangs around
her neck. Brandishing a magic white cloth, she rushes at children in the
audience, scattering them, and scowls at babies in mother's arms.
Anthropologists see Rangda originally as
a maternal figure; drama historians claim she is the personification of
the witch par excellence; archaeologists contend that her origin is Shiva's
wife Durga in her evil aspect; historians claim she was the legendary Queen
Mahendratta of King Airlangga's 11th century East Javanese kingdom.
Rangda is not an entirely unsympathetic,
evil figure, as she serves a very critical role protecting village temples
from demons and helps recycle dead bodies into the Cosmos so that the dead's
spirits can be reborn. People worship her ardently because she can protect
them against black magic. Margaret Mead saw Rangda as the dark side of
the Balinese female archetype-the supple and alluring young dancing girl
metamorphosed into the horrific, angry old witch.
Calon arang is a story of revenge
and penitence. Long ago in the days of great King Airlangga, an old widow,
Calon Arang, lived in the jungle with her beautiful daughter, Ratna Menggali.
Calon Arang wanted her daughter to marry a prince from Airlangga's court,
but despite her beauty, no prince came. Becoming very angry, Calon Arang
made offerings to Durga and learned the art of black magic. She sent Celuluk,
the perfect manifestation of evil, to lay waste to the land and destroy
the kingdom.
When Airlangga heard of the widespread epidemics
and destruction, he beseeched his high priest, Mpu Paradah, to step in.
The priest sent his son, Bahula, to ask for the hand of Ratna Menggali.
This so pleased Calon Arang that she cured all the sick and brought the
dead back to life. The plagues subsided.
But one day Calon Arang's son-in-law found
a lontar book of Calon Arang's black magic. These he conveyed to
his father, who deciphered its secret formulas. When Calon Arang discovered
Mpu Paradah had learned her source of power, she became enraged and declared
war upon him. Mpu Paradah was then forced to do battle with Calon Arang
(Rangda). The eerie witch appears on stage amidst blood-curdling curses
and descends howling and shrieking upon the priest.
In defense, Mpu Paradah unleashes a spell
and vanquishes Calon Arang. Before she dies, Calon Arang asks forgiveness.
Mpu Paradah absolves her deeds and she is allowed to enter heaven. However,
the lesson is not lost to the Balinese. By dramatizing Rangda's powers,
it's hoped that good favor will be gained with the ever-present witch,
her appetite for destruction placated.
Cekepang
Pronounced "check-a-poong," this dance is specifically
eastern Balinese and rarely performed outside Karangasem Regency. Some
regions of Lombok still perform it, a legacy of the days when Lombok was
ruled by the rajas of Karangasem. The cekepang relates a story chosen
from classical Hindu literature, the tale of Arjuna Wiwaha. The
music, chanting, dance and costuming of cekepang are as spectacular
as they are unusual. The best practitioners come from Dukuh village.
Cupak
An old Balinese dance drama, the cupak's origins
date back to East Java's Kediri Kingdom. Although it has the earmarks of
a comic opera, the cupak is really an epic tale of jealousy, heroic
deeds, and treachery. There are many variations. The Cupak story is also
performed as a shadow play.
The chief protagonists are a gluttonous villain
named Cupak and his handsome younger brother, Grantang. One day it's discovered
that the beloved daughter of the king of Kediri, Mustikaning Daha, has
been kidnapped. The king announces that whoever finds her may become king.
Cupak and Grantang resolve to look for her, encountering many adventures
along the way.
Drama Gong
This popular dance form was only created in the late 1960s. In
drama gong, music and dance are downplayed, while acting is the
most important medium. Actually no one seems to pay much attention to what's
going on up on the stage as this type of play is the occasion for the Balinese
to socialize. For this reason, drama gong is becoming even more
popular than arja.
Gambuh
Written records describing this semi-sacral dance go back 1,000
years, making it the oldest known dance on Bali. At that time these court
stories were popular at all levels of society. The gambuh is closest
in style to Javanese dance forms.
It's said that the gambuh, which has
undergone practically no development, is the mother of all Balinese dances-the
classic technique to which all other dances owe their descent. It's believed
that if a dancer masters the gambuh, she is able to dance any Balinese
dance. A number of Bali's most popular dances-wayang wong, cupak, calon
arang, joged, topeng, legong, and arja-have either been influenced
by it or else are derived directly from it.
Although it's required for certain ceremonies,
performances of gambuh are not easy to find. Only two groups stage
tourist gambuh in Batuan (Ubud area); STSI in Denpasar has another
gambuh troupe, and there are three or so others scattered around.
Kuta is reviving an old group.
Look in the most recent Calendar of Events
or ask about upcoming performances at the Denpasar Tourist Office. The
gambuh is also put on for such serious occasions as a temple's odalan,
which takes place every six months. It's often staged in a temple's middle
courtyard.
The mysterious flute music, the strains of
the rebab, the eerie singing, and the gambuh's slow, stylized
dance movements make it a hypnotic and dramatic dance to watch. The gambuh
usually lasts three hours-traditional versions are even longer. The play
is performed in episodes which are usually comprehensible to Westerners.
The story frequently opens with a princess
and a group of her attendants who perform a beautiful dance. There is the
usual collection of Balinese kings and handsome princes who act out status
rivalries. The dialog is spoken by attendant-comedians in the Balinese
language of the 17th century, similar to Old Javanese.
Plots derive from the Malat tales,
the Javanese equivalent of the Arabian Nights. Other dramas presented
are the Panji and Ranggalawe-historical dramas imported from
East Java.
Janger
The janger started suddenly in 1925 after a company of Malay
opera mimes visited the island. With its two swaying rows of seated boys
and girls, it appealed immediately to the Polynesian spirit of the Balinese.
It was the first time that boys and girls danced together solely for enjoyment-Bali's
first social dance!
The Balinese never hesitate to introduce
a new dance from such mongrel sources and soon every banjar strove
to outfit a company of janger dancers, whose gay costuming and acrobatic
posturings often approached farce. In one group the girls even wore shorts,
a moral outrage in Bali at the time.
Janger was still the rage when Covarrubias
wrote his Island of Bali in the 1930s. Within a few years, however,
its popularity was utterly eclipsed by the arja opera form, and
later by the ubiquitous drama gong which originated in the mid-1960s.
Nowadays, janger is almost completely defunct, taking place perhaps
only once or twice a year, and needs a major rescue effort to revive it.
Jauk
This very demanding classical solo dance of a demon-warrior dates
from the 18th century. Jauk has its origins in a traditional play
in which all the dancers, wearing fearsome raksasa masks, enact
episodes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics in the old Kawi language.
This masked pantomime is danced in the legong
technique, similar to the baris in style, but more flamboyant and
violent. The troupe generally appears in a group of up to six dancers,
sometimes together with Rangda. You often see the jauk precede the
baris, followed by perhaps a topeng; these are all very commonly
staged together.
The jauk dancer's ghost-like mask
is colored a violent red, or sometimes white, with thick black moustache,
bulging zombie-like eyes, and an eerie smile. As his whole face is covered
by a leering mask, the jauk dancer must convey his emotions solely
through his movements and gestures.
Also characteristic of the costuming are
gloves with long nails and high headdresses with colorful pompoms and tassels.
The demon king's long transparent fingernails flutter incessantly to a
pelegongan orchestra. Though of sinister appearance, the raksasa
are usually friendly and the dance is mischievous and high-spirited.
Joged
The popular flirtation dance, the joged is, except for the
janger, the only Balinese social dance. Each of the many variations
of this relatively new dance-joged bumbung, joged pingitan, joged gebyog,
joged pudengan, and gandrung-has been created in different areas
of Bali using various styles. All have a rather weak story line based on
the legend of calon arang.
A woman, dressed in a costume similar to
a legong dancer's and performing traditional legong steps,
enters a circle. After she dances for a while, she starts to make eyes
at a particular boy among the onlookers, enticing him into the circle by
tapping him with her fan. Some boys try to escape, but are dragged back
by their friends.
Every five minutes or so she encourages a
new boy and partners change, or a bolder one simply cuts in. The boy chosen
must dance in his own improvised style, often quite artful and animated
in itself. The object is to come as close as possible to the girl's face
to catch a whiff of her perfume-a Balinese kiss-while the girl plays hard
to get. Sometimes the joged begins with two or more women dancers,
ensuring more male spectators will get their moment in the circle.
Possibly a modernized, popularized version
of an ancient mating rite, the joged today is a recreational dance,
a sort of mixer-a way for teenagers to meet and get to know each other.
It is especially entertaining when a French bank clerk or an Australian
abalone fisherman is tapped on the shoulder, with all his mates egging
him on.
Traditionally, only men were asked to dance,
but now women may dance also. The joged is particularly popular
after the harvest or after a great religious ceremony; it is a celebratory
event for all levels of Balinese society. It's an occasion when members
of the community who are not usually dancers or performers may dance in
public, show off, and have fun.
The joged is accompanied by the pedjogedan,
a gamelan of the gandrung type. Its bamboo instruments give
the dance a happy and melodious background.
Kebyar
The name of this dance means "lightening." Like the baris,
it is a male solo exhibition dance, often an interpretation of one of the
epic poems (kekawin). The kebyar is unique, however, in that
it is usually performed in the sitting position.
Kebyar originated in northern Bali
in the 1920s, derived from certain movements of the delicate legong,
the heroic postures of the masculine baris, and one of the most
ancient of Balinese dances, the sanghyang.
The present kebyar cannot be separated from
its greatest practitioner, I Mario, who was responsible for the perfection
of the dance. A former jauk dancer, Mario rearranged the jauk
and began performing the kebyar in 1915.
During a performance, Mario was completely
taken over by the role he played; people who met the soft-spoken young
man during the day would be amazed to find out that he was the brilliant
virtuoso they had seen dancing the night before. Mario would not even recognize
himself; when shown a photo of himself dancing the kebyar, he exclaimed,
"That man is a good dancer!" At his peak, Mario was perhaps the
greatest channel in the history of modern Balinese dance.
There are many different kebyar styles.
The most popular form in south Bali is kebyar duduk, the "seated"
kebyar, in which the dancer sits cross-legged through most of the
dance. In kebyar trompong, the dancer joins the orchestra by playing
a long instrument of inverted bronze bowls (trompong) as he dances
and twirls the trompong sticks between his fingers.
As well as being the most strenuous of Balinese
dances, it is said that no one can perform the kebyar without a
profound knowledge of music. Frequently the kebyar's solo male dancers
can play every instrument in the orchestra.
To attain mastery, all the fluctuating moods
of the orchestra must be mirrored in the body's flexibility and in the
dancer's facial expressions-whether the tones be light and lyrical, somber,
frantic surprise, or ominous sorrow. The dancer must in fact become
a sensitive musical instrument. Seated in a small square bounded on all
sides by gong kebyar instruments, he throws himself under the absolute
influence of the music, being moved, drawn, swayed, and driven by it to
the most minute details of nuance and rhythm.
Typically, the dancer dresses in a long brocaded
kain worn as a skirt around his waist, one end trailing on the stage.
A gilt cloth winds around his torso; a great hibiscus flutters in his ear;
in his right hand is a fan. The dance is performed from the squatting position
with only the knees changing position. Moving from just the waist up, the
dancer focuses the audience's attention on the agile movements of his torso
and arms, and his powerful facial expressions. With darting glances, fan
waving furiously, muscles tense and taut, torso languidly swaying then
nervously rippling, the dancer's body fills with the music-almost to the
exclusion of the performer's personality.
Good kebyar dancers are extremely
difficult to find as they must possess mobile, supple facial features,
a fine grace, plus a tremendous personal magnetism and charm.
Kecak
In this spine-tingling nocturnal choir dance, a large moving mass
of bare-chested men simulate the sounds of a gamelan orchestra.
A mesmerizing theatrical experience created by workers just in from the
fields, the dance is named after the hypnotic and repetitive Chak-ka-chak-ka-chak!
sounds the men make.
The kecak was initially choreographed
by Walter Spies in 1931 while he was acting as a consultant for a German
company making Baron von Plessen's film Die Insel der Damonen (Isle
of Demons) shot at Bedulu. It soon became known among tourists as the
"Monkey Dance" which alluded to the singers sitting in concentric
circles playing the part of monkey soliders sent by Prince Rama to rescue
his wife Sita. Spies took the male chorus from the exorcistic sanghyang
dedari and added a fragment from the Ramayana to create a new and vigorous
art form. The dramatic kecak has also borrowed some typical kuntao
movements, a secret fighting art imported from China.
The best performances today are of a hypnotic
chorus of men chanting rhythmically in perfect unison-an exhilarating,
unnerving, experience. Since the participants have to enter and be brought
back from a trance state, the whole enactment can take several hours. The
worst performances resemble the blase emotions of an Ivy League pep rally.
Now you have to pay Rp5000-7500 to see a
watered-down "tourist" version of the kecak in 30 minutes
flat, only one component in a medley of dances. This form of kecak
is pure show, devoid of all religious significance, and caters to the short
attention span of tourists.
With at least 30 kecak groups, the
dance is performed throughout the year all over Bali. The Bualu troupe
is said to be best, and the best venue is still Bona, though the dance
was first developed in Bedulu over 50 years ago. The biggest kecak
on the island takes place at the Peliatan Palace every Thursday at 1930-200
men instead of the usual hundred.
Since the kecak is usually performed
just before sunset, with coconut palms and vegetation all around, the moon
on the rise, and the crickets starting their chorus, you feel as if you're
in the countryside. It's a magical experience. Eighty to 150 loinclothed
men sit in five or six concentric circles, in the middle of which stands
a torch defining the stage and casting flickering shadows on the courtyard
or cleared arena. The members of this living theater, only partly visible,
wait in silence as the audience is seated. At a signal, the group begins
to sway back and forth, circling and bending, their outstretched hands
and torsos rising and falling in the shadows in wave-like motions. Suddenly
they throw out their arms and shake their fingers wildly as erratic shadows
form and flee in the lamplight. Gradually, the rhythm of the surging mass
gains speeds. Arms flutter while dancers perform a fast interlocking vocal
pattern of shouts, grunts, screeches, and hisses with remarkable precision
and organ-like volume. At fixed times, half the circle falls backward together
in a dramatic, unearthly swoon. The individual dancers are totally swallowed
up by the power of the whole.
The kecak usually reenacts a short
episode from the Ramayana when Rama, his brother, and his wife Sita are
exiled to the dark forests of Sri Lanka. The dance tells of the kidnapping
of Sita by the evil demon-king Rawana and of her rescue by her husband
with the help of an army of monkeys-the male chorus-led by the monkey general,
Hanuman.
Sita, with her winged golden headdress, moves
delicately onto the "stage," with wrists arched and fingers bent
back. Rama and his brother Laksamana are more vigorous, stamping with flexed
feet. When Rawana leaps to stage center, the vocal chorus simulates his
flight with a long hissing sound. The moment Sita is abducted, the mass
of men leap up as one. In one version, when Rama is shot with an arrow
that magically turns into a snake, the circle becomes the snake surrounding
him. The passion of the monkey men soars. Finally, in the battle in which
good defeats evil, the grouped chorus divides in two to represent Hanuman
defeating the powerful giant Rawana's army. This part made this dance play
very popular in Dutch times because it held out the hope that the downtrodden
masses would eventually rise up to throw out their colonial masters.
Legong
Considered the most dazzling of all Balinese dances, the legong
represents the archetype of femininity and grace, and is one of the most
familiar of Indonesia's dances outside Bali. Swathed in cocoons of gold-brocaded
fabrics, with hands palpitating and eyes flashing, heavenly nymphs perform
a highly abstract interpretation of a literary classic. Yet despite this
superficial dramatic content, the legong exists almost purely for
the sake of dancing. Again, the performances for tourists are far removed
from the style, beauty, and technical perfection of a legong staged
for private or religious functions.
Inquire at STSI (College of Performing Arts)
where the most polished performances take place. The best exemplify Balinese
classical dance par excellence; the worst offer little more than the dispassionate
swaying of disinterested little girls marking time until the cameras stop
flashing.
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In his book, A House in Bali, Colin McPhee described the fragile, chalkwhite faces of legong dancers as imbued with sexless calm - hounting, enigmatic, mysterious. Aficionados vehemently discuss the merits of particular legong dancers for hours. |
There are now at least 40 commercial legong
troupes on Bali. Some say Peliatan is home to the finest group on the island,
but only in Teges is the classical "antique" version still practiced.
Probably the most beautiful presentation of the legong is on the
grounds of Ubud's royal palace. It's very crowded, so get there early.
This dance-pantomime is so highly stylized
that only the themes of the gamelan and the abstract movements and
costumes of the dancers give a clue as to the scenes and actions taking
place in the story. The legong is really an elaboration of the old
wayang kulit shadow play in which humans simulate the movements
and dramatic stories of marionettes. Since none of the historical records
mention this form, legong is probably relatively modern.
The legong was at one time patronized
by local princes and only held in the puri, the royal compound of
a village. Prepubescent legong dancers were once a prince's own
private property, recruited from the most agile and attractive palace children.
Originally, a narrator recited the literary text and chanted the dialogs
and episodes in time with the orchestra while the dance was in progress,
but this feature has disappeared.
The story is performed by three dancers:
the condong, a female court attendant, and two identically dressed
legong dancers who adopt the roles of royal persons. Although training
actually begins at age five, for live performances a pair of girls from
eight to 12 years old are chosen for their good looks and agile physiques.
Lovely round faces are the ideal. If all three girls look alike and are
the same size, all the better.
The girls are chosen before they begin menstruation
because only then are they considered pure and limber enough to perform
all the necessary movements. Extraordinary muscular control and great physical
endurance are required. Sometimes the bodies of the little pupils have
to be made supple by means of special massages. Dancers retire when their
menstrual cycle begins.
When preparing for a performance, dancers
are first dressed in gorgeous costumes: head to toe in silk and gold leaf
with a headdress of fresh frangipani blossoms and enormous earplugs of
gold. Their passionless, melancholy faces are heavily powdered, and a white
dot (priasan), symbolizing beauty and innocence, is placed on their
foreheads. Their eyebrows are shaved and replaced with a line of black
paint. Their bodies are tightly girdled from chest to hips with many meters
of heavy cloth and covered with rich beautiful silk bibs decorated with
gold. These stiff layers of clothing help to support their backs and give
them a graceful line. Although the legong is an erotic dance, visual
sexuality must be suppressed. The purpose of the tight breast-bands is
to flatten the figure. A sash of gilt cloth, a collar of bright stones
and mirrors, a silver belt, and ornamental scarves complete the dancers'
extravagant costuming.
The drama begins with the more simply dressed
condong taking her place alone in the middle of the dance floor.
There is a pause; suddenly a cue from the gamelan and she comes
alive, twirling in a circle in time with the music, her arms outstretched
and fingers tense, her body rising and arching and her head held high.
After this introduction, the music changes tempo, and the two legong
enter the stage forming graceful patterns and sharp turns with the condong.
After a short dance together, the condong hands the two dancers
each a fan and retires. The accents of the orchestra then quicken and the
legong dancers begin one of the most glittering and highly disciplined
displays of body movements in the world of dance. They fly away from each
other, waggling their hips and shivering their shoulders, each enacting
a separate role, only to return after executing a perfectly synchronized
circle.
According to her posture and the eyes, a
legong can be a statue, a butterfly, or a flower. The legong<\#213>s
hand drops then suddenly flies up like a bird on the wing, her fan fluttering
at almost blinding speed. Both dancers seem the double image of the other;
their heads snap back and forth and even their eyes and hands flick in
perfect accord.
In a love scene between Lasem and Rangkesari,
the dancers come together and playfully rub noses (ngaras), followed
by a flutter of the shoulders to signify a thrill of pleasure from a kiss.
In the 1930s, Charlie Chaplin once sent a Balinese audience into paroxysms
when he mimicked the elegant poses of a legong dancer.
There are at least eight different stories
for legong and thus eight different dances, always consisting of
an introduction, a drama, and a farewell. The repertoire includes legod
bawa, a traditional form; abimanyu, a comparatively new (1982)
creation; leko pertiwi accompanied by a gamelan tingklik;
legong keraton kupu-kupu tarum depicting butterflies flitting from
flower to flower and playing together. In a newly resurrected form, legong
prabangsa, Rangda the witch appears and self-stabbing may break out-very
unusual for a legong performance!
The plot most often acted out is the Lasem story from Malat, the
Balinese Thousand and One Nights. Derived from a historical event
that happened in East Java in the 12th century, this is a drama of a princess
kidnapped by a despised royal suitor. On a journey, the arrogant king of
Lasem comes upon the maiden Rangkesari lost in the forest. He abducts her
and locks her in his house of stone. Her anger rising, you can see Rangkesari
repelling the evil king's advances by beating him with her fan, then slapping
her thigh in a gesture of grief. When Rangkesari's brother, the prince
of Daha, learns of her capture, he threatens to go to war unless she is
freed. Rangkesari implores her abductor to free her and avoid war, but
the king vows to fight to the death. On his way to do battle, a black bird
of ill omen (a crow, played by the condong) intercepts the king
and warns him of his imminent death. She beats the earth with her "wings"
and swoops down upon the king to dissuade him from going to war. At this
point, with the king's decision made and his kris drawn, the ominous
battle takes place and the king is killed.
Mendet
The mendet is a processional dance of married women winding
in and out of temple grounds, carrying offerings of arak and holy
water to sustain the gods on their journey back to their divine home.
Oleg Tambulilingan
A modern dance specifically designed for tourists in the early
1950s by the late I Mario of Tabanan, oleg is often chosen to supplement
a performance of the legong. The word oleg means the "swaying
of a dancer," and tambulilingan means "bumblebee."
Symbolizing a Balinese courtship, this flirtation
dance depicts two bumblebees, a male and a female, happily sucking honey
in a flower garden. The female bee enters the garden first, circling the
stage in tight quick steps, trailing a long silk scarf. The dancer runs
the full gamut of female emotions: seductiveness, scorn, teasing, moodiness,
naughtiness, gay-heartedness. The female dancer first pretends to snub
the male, but he is finally able to win her love by various devices. In
one sequence the female may dance in the seated position while she sensuously
sways and flutters her hands. The male circles her with a manly stride,
his head cocked, feeling his power over her. They come close, only to swirl
apart again. The oleg ends with a love dance of the two bees.
Pendet
This is the basic temple dance, a religious offering, usually performed
by young girls at the beginning of any temple ceremony, ritual, wedding,
or toothfiling to ensure the gods are made welcome. Whereas the exhibition
dances such as legong and baris require years of rigorous
training, the pendet is taught by imitation.
The dance is first done by a pemangku,
followed by any who feel like it: old men and women are particularly inclined
to join in. Since dancers bear holy offerings for the gods, Balinese tradition
holds that pendet dancers be unmarried women, but this custom has
fallen by the wayside.
Because of the risks of desecration when
it's performed out of context, pendet for tourists was forbidden
in the '70s, replaced by the similar but more secular penyembrama
performed by girls. Now bare-shouldered young girls copy the movements
of their grandmothers, the most accomplished dancers of pendet.
All dancers-whether young, middle-aged, or
elderly-carry in their clasped hands palm-leaf and flower offerings, or
in their right hands water vessels, incense, and cakes. With their offerings
they dance from shrine to shrine within the temple complex. A man also
joins the dance; his function is to burn incense.
There are a number of pendet forms:
a slow-moving, welcoming dance; a collective dance performed by six, eight,
or more dancers dressed in wraps of gold brocade in rows and files; or
a procession by women dressed in everyday clothes. When its purpose is
to open the legong, the dance movements are highly synchronized
and precise. At the finish, the girls throw flowers to the audience in
a gesture of welcome.
Prembon
Created only in the 1940s by the raja of Gianyar, the prembon
incorporates movements from arja, baris, gambuh, parwa, and particularly
topeng. It is an excellent introduction to a whole range of different
dances.
Ramayana
For years the Hindu epic Ramayana has been depicted in wayang wong
in which live masked actors in splendid costumes enact the battle between
Rama and evil King Rawana for the hand of the beautiful princess, Sita.
In the mid-1970s a new dance interpretation of the Ramayana was introduced
on Bali by KOKAR. It was modeled after the Ramayana Ballet conceived by
a prince from Solo in an amphitheater constructed in front of the Loro
Jonggrang temple in Prambanan, Central Java.
Backed by a full gamelan gong, this
ballet is a musical blending of both classic dance movements and the hilarious
comedy of monkeys and clowns. The scene opens in the forest where Rama,
Laksmana, and Sita are living in exile. The two brothers are played by
beautiful women, Rama with golden headgear and Laksmana with a black headdress.
Their style of dancing is very refined and stately, as is becoming of royal
personages.
The giant Rawana, on the other hand, is swaggering,
lecherous, and gruff, a style more in keeping with a demon role. The animals
are often the most picturesque and rowdy participants, stealing the show
with their wondrous leaps, slides across the stage, and other miraculous
feats of agility and strength. The monkey general Hanuman outwits vastly
superior opponents by simply dodging and wiggling out of the way so that
they collide into each other. Children and adults in the audience are indistinguishable
in their glee.
Rejang
An indigenous, sacred temple dance presented as an offering to
the deities who have momentarily visited a shrine, the rejang is
performed by women ages two to 85 to propitiate ancestral spirits. The
steps and gestures are absurdly simple, probably Polynesian in origin.
The dancers move slowly and deliberately to the padmasana, holding
their hip sashes and twirling their fans. Occasionally a pedanda
or a pemangku leads.
Sanghyang
The Balinese have an uncommon facility and susceptibility for falling
into trance states. Sanghyang means "holiness" or "revered
one," referring to the divine spirit which temporarily inhabits the
bodies of entranced dancers. The dancers, transfixed by their own movement,
have entered a supernatural world where fatigue is unknown. This is why
dancers, when they come out of this dissociated state after hours of exhaustive
posturing, appear to have no knowledge of what has just happened to them.
Probably derived from rituals practiced in
the distant past, the various sanghyang dances serve the religious
function of protecting a community from the forces of black magic and other
dangers. Sanghyang were staged in time of trouble to alleviate or
divert epidemics or misfortune in a village. In the Kintamani area, you
can still commission one.
Sanghyang is the source dance from
which a number of modern-day dances derive. In its original form, offerings
are made to placate the leyak (witches), and benign spirits are
implored to come down to Earth where they reveal themselves to humankind
through the medium of the sanghyang dancer.
There are a number of sanghyang forms.
Sanghyang jaran features a pemangku or boy in trance either
riding a hobbyhorse or imitating the movements of a horse. He prances around
a bonfire of glowing coconut husks, trotting possessed through the red-hot
embers. As the trance mediums are attracted to all kinds of fire, no one
in the audience may smoke. This form, accompanied by only a male cak
chorus, can be seen five times weekly at Bona.
Staged only around Lake Batur and other mountain
villages, the sanghyang deling consists of dancing puppets suspended
on strings between two poles, the strings manipulated by children. The
accompanying music is starkly primitive, consisting of only suling,
terbang, and kendang.
Sanghyang dedari is a trance dance
performed by little girl mediums (dedari means "angel")
in a slow-motion version of the legong style, which serves as an
exorcism of sickness and evil spirits. This celebrated shamanistic ritual
performance is a way of contacting the gods.
Two little girls are selected from the community
by the pemangku for their psychic abilities. Only virgin girls are
considered pure enough. For weeks they are trained by means of rhythmical
chanting, incense, and hypnosis to be able to fall into a deep trance.
Once the two girls achieve this ability, the formal offering ceremony can
begin. A child chosen to be a sanghyang dancer will fall into a
trance in her mother's arms when she hears music or smells incense.
Though the girls have never received dance
lessons, when they fall into trance they are able to execute the most intricate
dance movements which ordinarily would take years of training. This fact
is not a bit extraordinary to the Balinese, as they understand that it's
the spirits of the male dedara and the female dedari who
dance in the bodies of the little girls. Their skilled dancing is proof
that a god has entered them. They become temporarily divine.
While in the temple, swaying back and forth,
the girls fall into a swoon. The small dancers' limp bodies are straightened
up and they are identically dressed in the costumes of legong dancers.
Women place frangipani-flowered crowns on their heads, dress them in heavy
silver anklets, bracelets, rings, and earplugs of gold.
As these deified dancers may not touch the
impure earth, they are hoisted on top of the shoulders of the strongest
men of the village and carried. They never open their eyes, as if asleep,
yet their seated performances coincide perfectly. Balancing at first gracefully
from the waist up, they soon bend and contort their bodies at unbelievable
angles.
Hunting for leyak, a procession is
formed which wends its way to a dance clearing nearby or to the death-temple
where a high altar has been erected. The dancers are then set down between
male and female choruses, before braziers smoking with incense. Employing
the same dance movements as the legong, the girls sway dreamily
to the inarticulate sounds of the mantras offered up to maintain the health
and well-being of the village. They have also been known to recite remedies
for ailing members of the community. Sometimes a full gamelan group
accompanies the ritual.
When the chanting stops, the girls fall to
the ground in a faint. The performance over, they are revived by a priest
who brings them out of trance by means of incense, chants, and rhythmical
movements, then blesses them with holy water. Once awake, the girls cannot
remember any of the performance, nor are they able to repeat any of the
motions they enacted while in trance. The sanghyang dancers become
ordinary, giggling little girls again.
The true sanghyang dedari ritual dance
is extremely rare; you'd be very fortunate to see one by chance. This is
true even though the various genres of sanghyang were exempted from
the governor's decree prohibiting sacred dances from being staged at hotels
and public theatres. Certain villages still look upon the ritual as extremely
sacred.
The "virgin" or "trance dance"
offered by tour agents is but a laughable, diluted version of the real
thing. A tourist rendition of the sanghyang jaran, the "fire
dance," can be seen at Bona (near Gianyar) as part of the evening
presentation. Though an intriguing and scary demonstration of firewalking
by a lone performer, the "angel dance" sequence is not a true
trance-dance.
Miscellaneous Dances
In vogue currently are the new genres of dance, garle le pas
or tari lepas ("free dance") in Indonesian, which are
non-dramatic, out-of-the-ordinary dances using new gestures and modern
staging equipment. All of these new creations are presently coming out
of the SMKI and STSI dance institutes.
Except for these modern dances, no attempt
has been made to revamp the rather limited number of existing gestures
in Balinese dance. New dances (kreasi baru) are being created all
the time but when a new dance is created, it usually consists of a new
combination of already existing gestures and movements fused with a few
Western elements. There's even a modern version of legong now.
Some have political origins, such as the
weaving dance tari tenum, specially requested by President Suharto
on his visit to the island in the late 1960s. Tari nelayan, depicting
men fishing, is another typical example of a contemporary kebyar-style
dance. Tari manuk rawa, "long-legged bird dance," portrays
the stylized mannerisms of a bird.
The genggong, or "frog dance,"
originating in Batuan, is about the life of the kings Daha and Jenggala
and features a wonderful jumping frog. Because it's so unique and humorous,
snippets of the genggong have found their way into many a hotel
and restaurant program. Jaran Teji, choreographed by I Wayan Dibia,
is a comic dance in which performers ride horses.
Be ready for such "tourist" innovations
as the cendrawasih dance which mimics birds of paradise and tari
kedis perit which portrays sparrows. A troupe of child mock-warrior
dancers accompanies Bali's only all-women gamelan orchestra, gamelan
ibu-ibu, in Peliatan.
Tektekan is not actually a dance but
an exorcistic procession of men carrying bamboo slit drums and giant cowbells
around their necks. This ceremony is found only in Krambitan District (Tabanan)
and in only four villages-Krambitan, Kukuh, Baturiti, and Penarukan-most
opulently at Krambitan's Puri Anyar. For more info, refer to Krambitan.
In times of crisis under the guidance of a pemangku, the tektekan
can also serve as a wali or religious dance.
Large-scale sendratari dance-dramas,
incorporating a mix of traditional and modern dance and music, are the
rage at the Bali Art Festival in June and July each year. Stemming
from Java, these galas are a Balinese attempt to imitate the movies. Painstakingly
staged, yet with little actual dancing, the characters don't speak but
mime very theatrically. When these melodramas are shown in the villages,
loudspeakers are used which sound terrible.