26th arts festival rises to occasion, despite cool reception from critics
26th arts festival rises to occasion, despite cool reception from critics
Kadek Suartaya, Contributor/Denpasar
After a month involving hundreds of domestic and foreign artistes, the 26th Bali Arts Festival, which ran from June 19 through July 17, was officially closed last weekend, leaving much work still to be done by both the artistes and organizer.
Aimed at enhancing Balinese culture and preserving its age-old performing tradition, the recent festival appeared to meet its objectives, despite much criticism on the implementation of the event and on the selection of art forms performed before the public.
Whether or not the festival served to meet the demands of the public and the artistes, it must be admitted that the event was able to function as a driving force for local artistes to display their talent and creations.
The festival successfully presented archaic Balinese performance art forms that are difficult to find on any stage on the island nowadays. It also became a flourishing event for new creations and innovations, regardless of harsh criticism that the festival has been a boring and monotonous arts event since it was first held 26 years ago.
What's more, there was clear evidence that the festival had a communal function to establish artistes within their own communities. Amid rapid modernization that has gradually diminished the once-strong sense of communality among artistes and society, the festival proved the opposite.
Traditionally, Balinese artistes performed their creations as part of humble, spiritual offerings to their gods.
The performing arts are considered to be a divine act to enrich their spiritual well-being. In the past, artistes performed at a variety of religious and communal festivities. In the past, most Balinese artistes rarely considered their work as a commercial product that could generate money and, most of all, fame. They dedicated their artistic creations to their gods and society.
Such an attitude, locally known as ngayah, has been polluted by a flood of commercialism and the strong influence of market- oriented pop culture, which places money and fame above all else.
At the recent festival, the spirit of communalism was again aroused among the artistes. A clear example of this was seen during the festival of Gong Kebyar. Each participating group came from a sekaa (art group) within banjar (traditional village communities) across the island.
Prior to the festival, every sekaa had to spend at least four months to six months practicing and rehearsing. Each Gong Kebyar group usually consists of dozens of members -- gamelan players, dancers and others.
During rehearsals, the members of each respective banjar would come together to make their group's performance at the festival a success. The artistes' accomplishments at the event would bring pride and respect to their banjar.
The banjar members would willingly give donations in the form of cash, food, costumes, transportation and other necessary items needed for the arts performance.
Every member of the banjar would feel the need to support their group in whatever way they could.
I think this is a positive side to the festival. Bali has grown rapidly as a tourist island where a lot of art forms have been created and presented to delight the tourist industry. There is also a common feeling among artistes that they deserve to be rewarded by the busy and profitable industry.
As a result, they (the artistes) have forgotten their original objectives when performing. In the last few years, numerous artistes, some talented and others mediocre, have proudly performed their creations in hotels, restaurants and holiday resorts in return for a meager amount of money and applause.
The festival was able to reclaim the original artistic spirit of Balinese artistes: performing the arts for arts' sake. However, time alone will tell if the artistes and the organizer can maintain this commitment, given the pervasive impact of commercialism and globalization.
The writer is a lecturer at the Denpasar Institute of Arts (ISI) and an avid gamelan artiste.