June/July, 1998
No. 035/VI/98
cover story
After The Boom
What future is there for
Bali's modern theatre
scene?
Warung Society
Bali has its own history of
communal philosophising
and coffee-drinking
Twenty years of Bali's
Festival of the Arts
beyond
bali
Sumbawa's
Secrets
Photographs from
Kuang Amo
regular
features
Dangerous
Times
Orchestrating a
cremation in Ubud
Home Grown
A preview of
the Quicksilver Pro
Adventure
Getting over a fear
of diving
Health and Beauty
Foreign aid for
optic
health
Books
The Painted Alphabet
reviewed
Food
Two boutique hotels,
two top chefs
Fiction
'Our Moon'
by Mas Ruscitadewi
advertising index for
Bali Echo web site
 |
Every
year, from mid-June to early July, Bali exhibits an imagined past. It all starts with a
colossal parade of dancers, musicians and bearers of offerings, men dressed like Majapahit
warriors, women like princesses and ladies in waiting, advancing to the slow rhythm of the
kendang drums and small cenceng symbals. Barong and kecak
dance troupes follow, and a long line of women carrying tall gebogan offerings.
Group after group and district after district participate in the procession to open the
three week fantasia during which Bali showcases itself at Bali’s Festival of the
Arts.
To anyone new to Bali, the Festival of the Arts is indeed a must. It encapsulates some of the best and rarest shows on the island, is within driving distance from major hotels and is absent of the hassles of a genuine performance. Except for the first day, where the parade is followed by a huge Sendratari Ballet, the program is divided into two parts: the midday shows, between 10 am and 12 am, which are usually reserved for musical performances, traditional games, special craft contests (such as the making of offerings or Balinese cooking), and the night performances - the best of Balinese dance. which start at 8 pm and last into the night. The Art Centre grounds, where a food stalls are open until midnight, buzz with activity.
Bali’s Festival of the Arts more than simply a cultural event, though. It is also the implementation of a policy. It ensues from the choice of tourism as the tool of Balinese regional development in the late 60s, as part of a larger policy of revamping regional cultures for national purposes - the Festival of the Arts is essentially an exercise in nation-building. This revamping has been impressive: by the early seventies, village groups of music, dance, traditional theater and others were inventoried, then made to compete with one another in an atmosphere which energized the life of the villages, whose young blood was drained to Denpasar and Kuta to look for jobs and education. In the city, schools of dance and art were either created or developed with considerable means. These schools had a large impact. They led research, created analytical teaching methods (instead of the mimetic, master/disciple technique of the tradition; standardized the dance movements, produced new types of performances for village entertainment and tourism consumption and last, but not least, produced graduates who, upon return to their villages as teachers, diffused the new dances and the standardized versions of the old ones.
To present the result of this cultural overhaul a cultural complex was needed: it was the Taman Budaya (1973), better known as the Art Center, a huge complex built the center of Denpasar with a 6000-seat amphitheater for the performing of colossal ballets and a series of closed theaters, Balinese open wantilan performance halls and annex buildings. It is this complex which hosts the Bali’s Festival of the Arts.
The Festival of the Arts gives a complete overview of Balinese traditional and post-traditional music, dance and theater. Two types of shows can be seen. The first, ‘traditional’, are performed by village groups, either selected after a series of regional contests or because they preserve old styles or rare dances. Legong, baris, kecak, gambuh, leko, arja, mask dance and the like, are all presented by the best groups of the island. The village dances performed at the Festival are sociologically interesting, too. It illustrates the definitive shift away of the culture from its agrarian origin. Cultural evolution is nowadays determined by the market and the government, and the ancient, sacred dances are dying away one by one - or being revived with a new purpose. Many dances are now preserved in villages simply because dancers hope to perform some day at the Art Center.
The second, kreasi baru (new creations) and ballets, are usually presented by the art schools of Denpasar. The kreasi baru are short, mostly feminine ‘new dances’ created on the basis of the traditional corpus of gestures. They are good entertainment for young locals as well as tourists. The narratives of the large-scale sendratari ballets depart from those of the traditional theater. The heroes speak Balinese instead of Kawi, and can thus be understood by anyone, and the logic of the narrative goes by the rules of the book: it is meant to tell a story. In the 20 years since the Bali Art Festival was created, all the main stories of Balinese tradition (Ramayana, Sutasoma, Arjuna Wiwaha, Bima Swarga, Baratha Yudha) have thus been reinterpreted to cater for urbanized Balinese.
The function of the Arts Festival, therefore, has in part been to prepare the culture of the Balinese village for modern consumption. This not only serves as good entertainment - it has also worked to preserve the cultural memory of the Balinese people. Perhaps in no other city in the world do a people remain as close to their agrarian roots as the modern Balinese.
Above:
Onward, ever onward, signals a member of the Buleleng contingent in Bali’s
Festival of the Arts’ opening parade.
photo by Agus Spa
 |
Copyright © 1998 Bali Echo.
All Rights Reserved
site design by Access Bali Online