3 Culturally-Rich Dances in Bali That Will Make You Captivated

Balinese traditional dances are forever otherworldly impressive performances to watch. Using alliances between dance and music, Balinese dances convey ancient Hindu customaries with in kind of dramatic attitude. The dancers mainly exhibit dainty hands and feets maneuvers, meticulous fingers, some with dancing wide-opened eyes or martial arts techniques. Either they are graceful or energetic, sophisticated or audacious, they all are wholly fused within Balinese cultures and religious rituals. You can see a common set up of dancer group in collaboration with gamelan orchestras, which is traditional percussion made out of bronze, wood, and bamboo. Several ceremonies, temples, and public places held dance performances occasionally or regularly. When in Bali, this is a million-dollar worth of a show, endorsed by the diversity of Indonesian culture.

In alignment to its purpose, objective, and characteristics, the dances are blocked into 3 genres. They are: Sacred dances (Wali): The oldest genre and takes place solely in inner sanctum of pura (Balinese temples) during special ceremonies. It acts as a ritual to warmly welcome and entertain the incoming gods, who take over the dancers’ body as the medium. This is not for public or tourists consumption. Semi-sacred dances (Bebali): Still within the temple and its sacred values, Bebali is a ritual that doubly functions as an entertainment too. With storyline and characters, the dance is like a story-telling. Entertainment / social events’ dances (Balih-Balihan): The last one is particularly performed to entertain the onlookers or tourists. Mostly, it is a toned-down version of sacred dances that can be shown everywhere, spinning a yam about tale in Hinduism or contemporary romance.

Kecak Dance Kecak dance (or widely famous as Bali Fire Dance), is a traditional dance primarily inspired by ritual of exorcism. The burning fire is ignited in the centre, massively surrounded by at least 150 shirtless men. A piece of cloth they wear is a black and white checkered cloth fastened around their waist. All the dancers face the midpoint, substantially carry out a bunch of hand and arm movement that portray glorification or veneration. Without musical instruments or percussions, the men independently sing out the music in form of acapella. You will notice Kecak dance right away from the harmonious loudness shouting “cak, cak, cak” repetitively.

Barong Dance If you are familiar with the iconic displayed character in balinese loungewear top or baju barong, it means you already have a rough drawing of Barong in mind. The two men who star as Barong will wear a huge lion-like mask, with features of two big black eyes and two canine teeth, and partly covered by long blonde hair. In Balinese mythology, Barong is the “King of Spirits”, “Lord of The Forest”, or “Magical Protector”. This dance delivers a story of perpetual warfare between the good spirit versus demonic queen--Barong versus Rangda. Legong Dance Legong = “Le” means lithe and pliable movements, while “Gong” means gamelan. The birth of this dance occurred in 19th century and was taken into account as dance of royal palace as an exclusive royal entertainment. This dance illustrates a story of a lost maiden who were found by a king and seized as hostage at last. In order to conduct the dance, it takes 2 well-trained girl dancers with prime physique who had been dedicatedly practicing since as early as five. Holding a fan in hand, they professionally master such sophisticated, expressive, and intimate movements of fingers, feet, and facial expressions.

Each and every chunk of fragment that makes Balinese dance a Balinese dance--the choreography, attire, make-up, accessories, role, and storyline--is necessary to be coherent with one another, to attain a wonderful spectacle of wealthy Bali’s heritages. Tightly perpetuated from generation to generation, these dances are meant to make all the audiences awestrucked. The bare eyes might be capable of admiring the glorious vista, but the unmitigated meaning is not that simple to grasp. As the dance goes in sync with the rhythm, everyone cannot help but clap and cheer. Beyond questions, Balinese dances are magical shows you need to sign up for.