Culture, Tourism and Cultural Tourism: Boundaries and frontiers in performances of Balinese music and dance

Abstract

Cultural tourism in Bali is analysed here through two music and dance events designed for tourists, and a Balinese Hindu temple festival. While all three cases allow tourists to hear and see performances constructed from the sounds and images of Balinese performing arts, at the same time they provide demonstrations of cultural matrices which necessarily remain unrecognised by tourists. Through the situation of entry to or restriction from knowledge this creates, cultural tourism in Bali is theorised as a map of boundaries and frontiers between culture bearers and tourists.