Modern reconstruction of Balinese dances<\/p>\n
By Benito Lopulalan<\/p>\n
DENPASAR (JP): Dancers come and go, but its tradition that
\nfeeds and bonds the movement. This cliche is half-true in Bali.
\nWhile several dances have laid dormant, others have been lost in
\nthe rush of time.<\/p>\n
The mortality of dance is a reality anywhere. In Bali, dance
\nhas played a major role in developing the island's image as an
\nanthropological and tourist paradise.<\/p>\n
\"In the sixties there were only three versions of the Legong
\ndance left,\" comments Dr. Made Bandem, currently director of the
\nIndonesian Academy of Arts in Denpasar. \"With at least 15
\nversions of Legong, this figure was not impressive.\"<\/p>\n
The impending threat to the dance raised concern, both for
\ncultural and tourism reasons. \"It was therefore decided to
\nreconstruct some of the dormant versions of the dance. We have
\nbeen doing this in recent years with the help of the Walter Spies
\nFoundation,\" says Bandem, who is a managing member of the
\nfoundation.<\/p>\n
The Walter Spies Foundation is organizing a Legong festival
\nfor April this year.<\/p>\n
Legong is a dance of birds and of escaping princes or
\nprincesses. Lasem, Kebyar, Smaradhana, Koetir, Prabangsa are a
\nfew names of the many classical versions, some of which have been
\nforgotten. The evolution of the dance owes as much to the
\ndancers' interpretative creativity as to the reference stories.
\nMost are derived from old Kawi literature. In the past, after
\nlearning a version of the dance from a local master, talented
\ndancers were expected to develop their own interpretation of the
\ndance.<\/p>\n
\"They sometimes did it to prove their own creativity, but at
\nother times simply because they had been visited by a dream,\"
\nsays Mrs. Arini Alit, a famous dancer from Denpasar.<\/p>\n
This leads to the risk that a dancer's eagerness to add their
\nown touch to a dance could completely modify it. The old version
\nmight disappear unnoticed. Old versions survive if they have a
\nspecific function in the community. The fate of the dance depends
\non the creativity of its dancers and on its sacredness in the
\neyes of the community.<\/p>\n
According to Dr. Jean Counteau, a prominent cultural observer
\nin Bali, what is now fashionably called reconstruction is not new
\nto Bali. The Balinese have long had a tradition of \"sleeping
\ndeities.\" The dance is, in such instances, the \"waking up\" of the
\nGod, who performs as part of \"its being there\". Upon completion
\nof the ceremony, the Batara (God) is put back to sleep, normally
\nuntil the next festival, but sometimes for years. The deity
\nusually wakes up after giving a \"sign\", such as a dream by a
\nmedium priest of an epidemic in the community.<\/p>\n
The dormancy may last tens of years. In Sabha, a village in
\nGianyar regency, some versions of local Legong are said to have
\nbeen dormant for 40 years. In Tista, a village in the district of
\nKerabitan, it has been extended to 60 years. In the surviving
\nversions, the movements evolved -- or some say deteriorated --
\nconsiderably, probably due to changes in the social function of
\nthe dance.<\/p>\n
\"In my village no dancer, once they had been made a dancer by
\nthe community, would dare refuse to dance at its request. They
\nwere village dancers rather than individual talents,\" asserts
\nArini Alit, who produced a teaching program of Balinese dance at
\nDenpasar's TVRI station between 1977 to 1987. \"But in recent
\nyears, this has changed. Dancers now perform as individuals,\"
\nAlit says. \"Dancers, especially the young ones, dare to say no to
\na request from the community. That was impossible in my day.\"<\/p>\n
Anak Agung Ketut, son of the famous Agung Raka of Shaba, has a
\npolitical interpretation for the change. According to him, many
\ndances lost their appeal because colonialism switched the
\npriorities of the Balinese.<\/p>\n
\"Dances were considered unimportant, especially during the
\nJapanese occupation,\" he assures. He added that many dances were
\nlost during the years of war for independence. Dance is
\nirrelevant to fighting people. \"As a consequence, there are now
\ndances which are only alive in the minds of their old and long
\ninactive masters.\"<\/p>\n
Reconstruction<\/p>\n
Masters of dance have undoubtedly played a key role in the
\nreconstruction of the dances. The late master Reneng devoted the
\nlast part of her life to revive the old spirit of Legong,
\nespecially in the village of Binoh on the outskirts of Denpasar.
\nOthers, like Agung Raka in Sabha and Kakul in Batuan, have
\nfollowed her lead.<\/p>\n
\"Reconstruction would be impossible without the skill and
\nmemory of the old masters,\" explains Rucina Ballinger, an
\nanthropologist and Balinese dancer.<\/p>\n
\"In my village, Sabha, the reconstruction program was started
\nin 1977,\" said Anak Agung Ketut, recalling the time when the
\ndancers of the village were deliberately reviving the old Legong
\nof their village. The only person who remembered the movements
\nwas his father, Agung Raka, a teacher master of the dance in
\nSabha. \"Some girls were called to start practicing. After several
\nweeks, some were still eager to learn but others had dropped
\nout.\"<\/p>\n
Everyone thought it would be easy, but it wasn't. Even the
\nmasters couldn't reconstruct the dance movements at first. Their
\nmemory slowly came back until the whole sequence of movements was
\nrecreated in its supposed original form.<\/p>\n
\"Fortunately, the music repertoire had been preserved, so my
\nfather would use the melody to recreate the original movements.<\/p>\n
\"The music is very important. To pull any dance back from its
\ndormancy, the sekehe must still exist with their original
\nrepertoire,\" explains Rucina Ballinger.<\/p>\n
Sekehe is a club which regulates every activity in a Balinese
\nvillage. All castes are admitted to it on equal footing with
\nrespect to the works to be performed and to the rights to be
\nenjoyed. The clubs for dancers and musicians are necessarily
\nrelated, and sometimes even merge into one. The sekehe gamelan
\nconsists not only of musicians and anyone involved in its
\nactivities, such as instrument repairers, but also donors. They
\ncan have a dozen to hundreds of members.<\/p>\n
In Binoh, both the old masters and the sekehe took part in the
\nreconstruction of the dance.<\/p>\n
\"We worked on it from 1973 to 1974, soon after Pak Sinti
\nreturned home from America,\" says Alit, referring to one of the
\nmaster dancers who was one of the main supporters of the Legong
\nin the village. In 1973, after several years of studying in
\nAmerica, Sinti returned home. He had learned new methods to
\nreconstruct dance while he was away. Luckily, the music
\nrepertoire had been kept alive by the sekehe of the village. This
\nwas due to the fact that the gamelan orchestra in Binoh is
\nslightly different from that of other villages.<\/p>\n
\"In the old days, this kind of gamelan was very ordinary. But
\nlater, it became unpopular and now only Binoh has the complete
\nset.\"<\/p>\n
Like in many other villages, the Binoh reconstruction effort
\nwas helped with foreign funding. The Asia Society, the Ford
\nFoundation and others have supported the reemergence of the
\nBalinese heritage with billions of rupiah.<\/p>\n
Preservation<\/p>\n
What will happen to the reconstruction of dance in the rapidly
\nchanging Balinese society? Some dances are communally owned and
\nare therefore performed only on social or religious occasions. If
\na dance disappears, does it mean that the community no longer
\nneeds it?<\/p>\n
\"All traditions are faced with the problem of preservation,\"
\nsays Christina Formaggio, an anthropologist and dancer, referring
\nto the Gambuh dance preservation project. Gambuh is said to be
\nthe source of the Legong corpus of movements.<\/p>\n
\"I think the disappearance of traditions in many countries
\nshould be a lesson on the need to preserve what remains in Bali.\"<\/p>\n
She emphasized that the change is due mainly to the flood of B
\nmovies and the development of tourism, which turns tradition into
\na commodity. She considers that \"putting tradition under the
\numbrella of tourism\" is particularly dangerous because it changes
\nthe rules of social interaction. \"It is not only dance which is
\ndeteriorating,\" she maintains.<\/p>\n
Some observers are keen to accuse the Academy of Arts in
\nDenpasar of standardizing Balinese dances down to the village
\nlevel. \"The patterns of dances taught by the academy reverberate
\nthroughout the island,\" says Aryantha Soetama, a writer and arts
\nobserver in Denpasar, \"It could make the styles of individual
\nvillages disappear.\" He refers in particular to the dance
\ninstruction programs that have reached many villages and have
\ninfluenced dancers. Many village dancers now dance in the
\nacademy's style.<\/p>\n
Made Bandem, director of the academy, doesn't contest the
\nfact. \"There is nothing wrong with new creators. All societies
\nhave their own forms of change and continuity,\" he comments. He
\nmentions that reconstruction is the continuity he is referring
\nto. \"It is impossible to stop creativity. Besides, in many
\nBalinese villages, some of the new creations are also performed
\nin temples and are well accepted. The Balinese as a whole have a
\nvery good understanding of what they regard as dance.\" It isn't
\nthe new creators' fault if their dances are accepted.<\/p>\n
With or without any modern institutions, change is unavoidable
\nand remains \"center stage\". As Jean Couteau insists, \"The center
\nof education in Balinese dance, and the arts in general, are the
\nurban artists and tourism marketers. They are completely
\nrevamping what we consider Balinese art.\"<\/p>\n
The reconstructions themselves are never without change. Some
\nrevived dances, supposedly reshaped alongside their original
\nform, are actually simplified versions of the dance of reference.
\n\"In their original forms, they took about 45 minutes. The
\nreconstruction cuts out some repetitious movements,\" explains
\nBandem. \"The most important thing is that we don't change the
\nmeaning and the significance of the original dance.\"<\/p>\n
Sudibya, a dancer and lecturer at the academy in Denpasar,
\ncomments, \"Some hoteliers reduce it even more. Many dances are
\noften performed in half the time or even a quarter of the time.\"<\/p>\n
The reconstruction of dances has two faces, the first is
\ntraditional continuity, the other is embedded in marketing. Any
\ndance, reconstructed or newly-created, is a tourism commodity.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/modern-reconstruction-of-balinese-dances-1447893297",
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