DANCE VENUES

In 1994, Dr. I Made Bandem, director of the STSI (formerly ASTI) dance and music academy in Denpasar, carried out a survey of the Balinese performing arts. He found and listed over 5,500 sekaha music, dance, and theater clubs and organizations all over Bali, so you won't have any trouble finding live dancing.
     Restaurants and most hotels are not really sympathetic environments for Balinese dance. Before dances appeared in commercial venues, theater space as such did not exist in Bali; instead, anyplace was a potential theater. Even today you can find these authentic performances in villages. There will be a row of warung, a few glowing gas lamps, a mob of jostling, wild-eyed kids, and kretek smoke thick in the air. If the village hall is too small for a masked dance-drama production, space will be cleared in a nearby field, in a dusty courtyard inside the temple, on a plastic tarp, on mats on the floor of a wantilan, or in the middle of a muddy crossroads with the open starry sky and the towering palm-trees as a roof. Locals erect the framework of a stage, hang a curtain backdrop, lay mats for the orchestra, and the show's ready to begin.
     At spontaneous dances put on out in the villages you are more apt to see old-style, uninhibited, undiluted dance forms-dances meant for the Balinese and their gods. It's also fairly easy to view performances connected with a temple festival (odalan) or other local ritual event, since there are 10 per year for the average Balinese. One is going on somewhere on the island every day.
     One way to find a performance is to just fall in behind one of the trucks loaded with musicians dressed in intense red, blue, or green costumes and headcloths. You will start to see these trucks careening down Bali's roads in the early evening, on the way to their engagements. Since the Balinese regard many of these events as sacred, inquire about conduct, dress, and custom beforehand.

The Audience
Balinese drama appeals to all age groups, from the tiny children lining the front rows to the wrinkled, white-haired grandmothers and haughty pegawi. Even the portly governor of Bali, Professor Ida Bagus Oka, has been known to don with gusto the full costume of the demon king Rawana. For teenagers, the occasion is an opportunity for flirting and mixing with the opposite sex, the boys and girls in separate knots of two or three.
     The spectators themselves take part in the dramas since the stage is often the open street itself or a dirt clearing before a temple where gods and kings mingle with the commoners. Balinese spectators are extraordinarily well behaved, patient, and welcoming-the picture of polite social behavior. No one swears, shouts, or pushes.
     No formal spatial separation exists between the audience and the players. Scabrous dogs stroll on and off the "stage" and small children run in and out of the legs of the actors, to no one's chagrin. During improvisations a performer may touch members of the audience or refer to them by name.
     Extravagant sets and props are only seen in lavish hotel performances. In the villages, the audience fills in the stage with its own imagination. Antonin Arthaud's theory of modern theater derived from the traditional, open Balinese performing stage, modeling its negation of the spectator/actor separation.
     Small children huddled together in the front rows scurry away giggling and screaming as the Queen of the Witches, Rangda, lunges at them. And when the king gestures for his clown/servant, with the whole audience waiting, the clown's raspy, bawdy voice emanates from a nearby warung where he is found drinking, completely ignoring the king, the dance, and the audience-which roars with laughter at such antics.
     When the kendang players leave their instruments for a few moments, children scamper to take their places. No one shoos them away; the cacophony they produce is accepted as part of the densely textured celebration. By breaking the traditional barrier between performer and audience, the message is brought even closer to home.
     The size of the crowd is the only sign of whether a drama is coming off successfully or not. Just as a choral performance in a Western church expects no response, a good dance performance will not provoke any applause because dance is looked upon more as an offering than as a performance. It's believed that always present among the spectators-invisible but keenly attentive-are the ancestors, gods, and demons.

Rehearsals
Dance groups are organized by the villagers into an association along the same lines as a musical society. The community contributes money, trains dancers, and acquires instruments. Those who can't dance or play music contribute in some other way, such as building dance platforms, taking tickets, or making costumes.
     Banjar community halls are the scene of gamelan and dance practice several nights a week. Dancing is also taught in the mud-walled courtyard of family compounds-the proprietor of your losmen may even be a dance teacher-and in the forecourts of temples.

Tourist Performances
Tourism is a vigorous and generous patron of the performing arts. The income produced is a great incentive for ensembles and dance groups to preserve and expand, and the money earned keeps being recycled in ever larger and grander extravaganzas for the gods.
     Currently, 18 different drama and/or dance performance genres are represented regularly for tourists; many other troupes perform on a less regular basis. Five villages present barong, four do kecak (one with a "fire dance"), six show legong, one presents wayang kulit, one tetekan. Get the booklet published by Dinas Pariwisata from their office at Jl. Bakung Sari 1, Kuta, or in Denpasar, to learn about the times and places.
     To accommodate the dances and dramas, about a dozen permanent venues have been established in the troupes' home villages of Batubulan, Bona, Sanur, Kuta, Legian, Ubud, and Peliatan where tourists arrive by the busload. Most tourists seem to end up sooner or later in Bona, but there are excellent productions put on in Peliatan near Puri Agung, and Padangtegal in Ubud, three streets to the east of Jl. Tebesaya. Dance presentations are also put on in the big hotels of Sanur and Nusa Dua during dinner.
     Just because dances are put on for tourists, it doesn't mean that they're not high quality. To the Balinese, paid dances are not "floor shows" but an integral part of their culture. This applies to performances deliberately designed to appeal to a foreign audience like the Ramayana and commercial spectacles derived from rites of exorcism like the so-called "Angel Dance" and "Fire Dance."
     In a number of instances, such as in performances of the pendet, Balinese ritual dances have been adapted to pure tourist entertainment. The Balinese feel an extreme embarrassment when they attempt to separate the sacral from the profane. They partially overcome this difficulty by making a distinction between those dances performed for the divine or supernatural (sakti) and those performed for demons (suci). But even in commercial presentations, the headdresses, masks, and kris are consecrated before a performance, rendering them "magic." In other words, the Balinese do not differentiate between a commercial show and a rite of exorcism.
     Some of the most accomplished dancers on the island take part in these tourist performances, their participation bringing them a reliable source of income-about Rp10,00 per performance. The Balinese also feel that the dances bestow magical/mystical benefits on their villages.
     Some venues, such as in Denjalan just outside of Batubulan, have presented dances almost continuously since 1936. The performance halls are big, decorated, airy, thatched buildings with brick stages and row upon row of elevated bamboo seats. A split gateway usually towers over the stage.
     Tables are set up outside with attendants and vendors selling tickets for Rp5000-7500 and audio tapes for Rp6000-10,000. Programs are available in numerous languages.
     As a rule, the productions are enthralling and absolutely professional. There is always a barong, an ambling, goofy monkey, pretty dancing girls, a king, a prince, a servant, a villain or two, and a trance fire dance. It's customary to applaud after the show.
     Although the movements are the same in secular tourist dances as they are in ritual dances, the dances are not complete. The stories have been modified, the action moves uninterruptedly, and the dances are abridged to adjust to the Western attention span-usually an hour to an hour and a half. This may be a bit long for very young children and, because the music is so loud, you may want to sit a few rows back.
     Take a pillow as seating may be uncomfortable. Get there early so you can sit in one of the front rows. If you don't, other tourists will stand up in front of you every few minutes to take pictures. Camera flashes during a performance are extremely distracting to other viewers, but expect a lot of them.
     During the show, stroll backstage and see the actors dressing and going on and off stage. You might even be able to have your picture taken with the arch villain! After the show, you can meet and chat with the actors and musicians while they stop for a drink at an outside warung.