Balinese Dance Research Articles

Balinese Dance in Transition: Kaja and Kelod

Balinese Dance in Transition: Kaja and Kelod

Liminality in Balinese Dance

Many Balinese performances take place in the outer courtyards of temples. The gamelan members are seated on either side of the temple gateway, and they are already playing when a dazzling figure appears at the top of the stone steps. For a moment or more the figure pauses on this threshold, making an entrance, we would say. But this is not Cynthia Gregory rushing out to greet her public. The Balinese dancer's act of crossing over from the ordinary world to the theatre world (which is to say the spirit world) is marked with hesitation as well as eagerness. Sometimes the performer does a little preview of his forthcoming dance. Masked characters and clowns might do a whole number, pretending to be scared by something, ducking back inside the gate, peeking out and so forth. Sometimes a curtain substitutes for the gateway when the performance isn't taking place in a temple, and then there can be a preliminary teasing, a rustling of the material, a glimpse of someone around the edge, to work up the audience's anticipation.1 And sometimes the performer simply waits in the gateway, letting us appreciate her beauty and gathering her own forces. The condong, or maidservant, in Legong classical dance makes her entrance this way, gesturing and posing. Finally, with her arms winged to the sides, palms to the audience, she spreads her trembling hands apart, symbolically opening a curtain. Only then does she come down the steps and begin her dance. Bali has fascinated researchers throughout the 20th century, perhaps because it's a place where art and life, ritual and theatre, consciousness and psychic detachment, are inextricably entwined. Balinese culture is the arena for a continual struggle between good and evil forces over the lives of individuals. Any action a Balinese takes might be spiritually harmful or efficacious because the elements of nature and of history, the spirit world and the material, are always hovering nearby, waiting to be released, by accident or by voluntary acts. The spirits can be honored or momentarily kept at bay through ritual practice such as prayers and daily offerings. From time to time they must be deliberately invoked and made to contend publicly, to demonstrate that although both sides are potent, neither ever wins conclusively. All art, perhaps even the most commercially motivated tourist performance and craftwork, is made for the gods. For a critic of Western dance, all this immediately poses problems-and possibilities. Performance in Bali is highly skilled, aesthetic, loaded with The Drama Review 35, no. 4 (T132), Winter 1991

Balinese Dance: Beyond its Physical Aspect

Balinese Dance: Beyond its Physical Aspect

Kaja and Kelod: Balinese Dance in Transition

Kaja and Kelod: Balinese Dance in Transition

Kaja and Kelod: Balinese Dance in Transition

A comprehensive overview of Balinese dance and theatre, this book presents a description and history of the many genres of Balinese dance. The first full-scale work to appear on the subject since 1938, this study discuses every aspect of Balinese dance--from dances given in the most sacred sanctuaries on the island to those of a secular nature, from the demonic performances ritually performed in dangerous areas to perfromances for tourists. The text is accompanied by copious illustrations and a glossary of terms, and is an essential tool for understanding the beautiful art of Balinese culture. interest . given in e . An epilogue addresses tourist eventstthrough the areas of lesser sanctity writings on the subject, this work explores

Gambuh: The Source of Balinese Dance

Gambuh is universally cited as the oldest form of classical dancedrama in Bali. It derives from the court entertainment of the kingdom of East Java in the tenth century. Through the marriage of Princess Sri Gunapriya Dharmaputra of Kediri to King Udayana of Bali, the kingdoms of East Java and Bali had been united late in that century. Lontar Candra Sengkala (1007), one of the lontar, or palm leaf books that record the history of Bali, mentions King Udayana's enjoyment of and further states that a special roofed platform (bale) was constructed at his palace specifically for performances (Moerdowo 1977, 61). All palace compounds in Bali today have their own bale pegambuhan. Gambuh is mentioned briefly in only two other lontar. Lontar Babad Dalem (1455) mentions one such performance using the Amad Mohammed story. This performance was sponsored by King Sri Dalem Smara Kepakisan, a Javanese prince appointed as king of Bali by the conquering Javanese Majapahit empire (Rinda and Moerdowo 1973, 2). Lontar Panitetalaning Gambuh (1812) mentions the teachers I Sabda and I Goya of Gianyar and I Wayan Batubulan of Blahbatuh as the creative leaders of the golden age of gambuh in the nineteenth century (Rinda and Moerdowo 1973, 3). However, although oral tradition and written records prove that is the oldest classical dance-drama form, no historical records prove that as performed today is identical to that in the tenth century. There are conflicting theories concerning the origin of the word gambuh. Soedarsono, Director of the College of Dance in Yogyakarta,

Kaja and Kelod: Balinese Dance in Tradition by I Made Bandem and Fredrik Eugene deBoer. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press1981. 191pp. $59.00.

Kaja and Kelod: Balinese Dance in Tradition by <i>I Made Bandem and Fredrik Eugene deBoer</i>. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press1981. 191<i>pp. $59.00</i>.

Continuities and transformations in Southeast Asian symbolism: a case study from Thailand

Since P. E. de Josselin de Jong first proposed that Southeast Asia could be considered a single ethnological area of study and was criticized for the formulation (1965), few attempts have been made to deal with the continuity of Southeast Asian symbols through time or to speculate on the relation between similar structures in different social, political and ecological contexts. To some extent, this reflects a change in theoretical climate away from studies which rely on diffusionist explanations for the distribution of objects or ideas. Such questions are easily reduced to mere ethnographic description a mapping of the spread of certain objects or symbols throughout Southeast Asia or untestable specula tions on the origin of a particular symbol. Anthropologists may also avoid looking at symbols diachronically by arguing that the meaning of a symbol has been lost through time and it is therefore no longer possible to discover a precise meaning. In past scholarship on Southeast Asia, there is a long tradition of interest in symbolism expressed by scholars from a variety of disciplines. The most significant resources on Southeast Asian symbolism are de tailed studies of particular symbolic domains such as Adam's work on Sumba textiles (1969), or Gittinger's analysis of the symbolism of Indo nesian textiles (1979). The house has been treated as a symbolic domain by both Cunningham (1964) and Hicks (1976) in Timor, and Turton (1978) and Tambiah ( 1970) in Thailand. On the state level, the architec ture of capital cities, palaces, and pilgrimage sites has been analyzed as a microcosm of cosmologica! order by Heine-Geldern (1956), and Mus (1978). Cultural performances such as Balinese dance dramas (Belo 1949), Javanese theatre (Anderson 1965) and Balinese cock-fights (Geertz 1972), provide further contexts for symbolic expression. These

"Kaja" and "Kelod." Balinese Dance in Transition.

"Kaja" and "Kelod." Balinese Dance in Transition.

Gambuh: A Classical Balinese Dance-Drama

One of the truly remarkable treasures of Balinese culture is Gambuh, the oldest and most ormal of the many varieties of-dance-drama on the island. Having survived through history with few apparent changes from its form of 400 years ago, Gambuh belongs to one of the world's longest-surviving theatrical performance traditions. Archaic, formal, and very stately, accompanied by an orchestra with a unique sound of wailing flutes, and presented by grave dancer-actors who chant and intone their speeches, Gambuh is much to be appreciated for its classic beauty and for its importance as a quintessential form of Balinese dance.

How dancing, singing and playing shape the ethnographer: research with children in a Balinese dance studio

In this article I contribute to the debate on research methods in ethnomusicology. To do this I illustrate how active engagement in the activities and learning processes of children better enables the ethnographer to gain insights into children's musical worlds. This is borne out of my research concerning children's practice and performance of dance, music and song in South-central Bali. The principle aim of my research was to examine the role of music and dance in the everyday lives of Balinese children. This was achieved through an investigation of children's learning and performance of ceremonial and secular traditional dance forms, children's songs and games, and children's disco dance performances. Taking Corsaro's (1985) 'reactive approach', which is responding to or following the children's wishes as my key fieldwork strategy, I show how I developed a basic practical knowledge of Balinese dance and children's songs. This knowledge then made it easier for me to communicate with children and for them to invite me to participate in their music, dance and play activities. I demonstrate that such occasions were beneficial to my research work, because in allowing me to gain insights into their learning of traditional dance and to learn about their songs and games, my potential child-informants also had an opportunity to discover who I was and why I wanted to learn from them.