Kumara Sari Children's Gamelan & Dance Club at ARMA

By Barbara Anello

UBUD, Bali (JP): Ketut Tutur at age 70 is as spry as the 12- year-olds he teaches at the Agung Rai Museum of Art (ARMA)

"My passport says 1935, but actually I was born in 1930," he said with a wink. "I'm getting old -- of course it doesn't show on my face, but I don't have the energy I used to have."

He could fool us as he prances and postures with a group of little boys, each one serious, struggling and intent on learning Baris, the dance of the young warriors.

Matching step for step, in front, in back, knocking their feet into the right stance with a quick side kick of his own, tapping their elbows up and slapping shoulders back, Pak Tutur is every bit the match for his aspiring youngsters.

As the young Condong performing Peliatan's famed Legong Keraton dance, Gusti Ayu Raka remembers she was so supple she could reach beyond the energy she used to have, stretch backwards and touch the ground.

Now in her 60's, and one of the Master Dancers teaching at ARMA, she's vibrant, youthful and witty. At age 11, Gusti Ayu was chosen by the famous dancer Mario in 1952, to be the first to perform his new creation, Tari Oleg Tambulillingan.

It took her a month to learn and within the year, the young dancer was touring Europe and North America with Anak Agung Gede Mandra' (of Peliatan's royal family) and his group of dancers and musicians. "I didn't even know all of Bali ," she laughed, "and here I was in Semarang (Central Jakarta), Jakarta, Paris and Italy. And up to my knees in snow in Montreal!"

The tour lasted eight months with a demanding and difficult schedule, but within a month or two, she said, she had adjusted enough to enjoy spaghetti.

Ketut Tutur, a master who has been dancing since age eleven and teaching for fifty years, reflects on teaching children at ARMA.

"When I teach children to dance, I start with the foundation, and that's Baris for boys. After Baris, they can learn Jauk and then the various Topeng dances. I can teach girls, too. For girls, we'd start with Tari Tambulilinggan -- of course, I'm not so good at Legong! By the time they're ready for that, they should get another teacher," he laughed.

Gusti Ayu Raka teaches Legong, Oleg and Kebyar. As a young dancer, she had the most rigorous training in the popular Arja Galuh, where a performer not only dances their part, but sings at the same time.

Later she was able to perform three different roles in a single performance, first as the solo Condong (maidservant) in Legong; then, with wings on her arms, as the furious solo 'guwak' bird of ill-omen, also in Legong Dance, and finally, as the lovely Oleg in the duet, Oleg Tambulilingan.

With her young students at ARMA, Gusti Niang Raka's objective is to instill a strong foundation in the classics. The dancers body must be "cocok" (suited to) the dance; then the posture, stance, position of feet, shoulders, the inimitable movements of supple fingers and expressive eyes.

Quickly, she demonstrates the difference between a Denpasar- and a Peliatan-style Legong stance. Without a single movement, her body suggests a multitude of images. She can spot a budding dance talent immediately, by the eyes and the hands.

Kumara Sari Children's Gamelan and Dance Club, started in 1998, by Agung Rai and his wife, provides a forum at Agung Rai Museum of Art in Pengosekan, Ubud, for children to learn and connect with their own culture.

Traditionally, in Bali, children begin to learn to dance early. In fact, as babies, they are encouraged to play with the sound and rhythm of the gamelan, imitating the gestures of dance. But now, in the MTV age, opportunities for this natural kind of imitation and learning are fewer.

In order to strengthen the link with tradition from a young age, ARMA offers free dance and music classes to elementary school children. Peliatan Village, home to Agung and his wife, is renowned for the excellence of it's dancers and musicians, so it's natural to expand and enhance this resource.

With a firm grounding in traditions and pride in their culture, this new generation will bring Bali into the future. Education, Agung Rai maintains, is the key to mastering a whole new set of challenges.

Setting the highest standards for the children, the teachers of music and dance, all professionals, give their energy and expertise for the daily practice sessions at ARMA.

Kumara Sari at ARMA, in effect, nurtures and creates a pool of talent for future generations of performers and artists. Visitors are welcome to the sessions, scheduled from 3:00 to 5:00 every afternoon, except Sundays, when classes are held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Pak Ketut Tutur's strategy for working with the children at ARMA is to teach the foundation first. "I start them with walking steps, then the posture -- how to hold the shoulders, the arms, put it together with the walking steps.

Then the gestures -- 1, 2, 3, 4," he counts... "When they begin to be able to put all that into action, they are ready for more movements and more gestures. When they are comfortable with all that, we can start on the face. They have to master all of the expressions: sweet, angry, threatening, noble, biasa (just normal). Then after they're tested, they should be able to carry on alone, and when they can do that, they're ready to start practicing with a group."

"Actually, anyone can learn to dance," Pak Tutur says. "Age is not important, it's the mind that matters. I have students of all ages. Now, I have a 65 year old Japanese woman. It doesn't matter. It takes about a week to see if the student is "cocok" -- well matched with dancing.

"Sometimes we can tell right away, but you should study every day for a week. If you're any good, in two weeks, we should be able to see something happening. And in two months, you'll know if you're a dancer."

So, how did you know that you were a dancer?" I asked.

"When I was a kid in Petulu, we didn't have any school. I was working with the cows, gathering grass and so on. There was a group of dancers and musicians in Petulu, my father amongst them, and I started learning dance with them. We had Barong Dance, Arja and Wayang Wong, with masks and stories from the Ramayana."

He continued, "We performed all around this area. Of course, then we danced for food, not for money. By the '50's I was teaching in the surrounding villages, Pisang, Timul, Bayung... When things were really difficult, I stopped dancing for awhile and went up into the mountains near Singaraja, Yeh Bang, Yeh Rambut Siwi, to try to earn a living."

"But I when I came back, I was dancing again. In 1969, Made Jimat (of the Gambuh Project, Batuan) was teaching here in Petulu Selatan. I continued studying with him and danced with the Batuan group for two years. I danced all over this area, with many groups -- in Pengosekan, in Peliatan, all over."

A veteran world traveler, Ketut Tutur toured with the American Gamelan group, Sekar Jaya, spending six months in 1980 teaching and performing in Santa Cruz and Berkeley, California.

He later taught in Australia and in Italy. "A little difficult," he admits, "to be away from Bali -- especially the language and the food!" He's toured Japan, Spain, Switzerland, France and England, where he performed for the former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. In Switzerland, he loved the lakes and mountains and remembers in particular, a Hindu temple high up on a mountain, where people practiced yoga. "I did a solo Topeng (masked dance) in that temple," he remembered.

What's his favorite place, I ask. "Paris, it's a beautiful city." Who can argue?

And how do all those places compare with Bali? "Well, life in Bali is more relaxing. Lebih senang-lah (happier)! You know, there's more time here, for talk, for friends, for whatever ... abroad it's always busy, always working."

Gusti Ayu Raka remembered the wonder she felt on her first world tour, standing in front of Big Ben in London and seeing the great drawbridge on the Thames suddenly split in half and open to let a boat through.

She brought photographs and slides back to Bali, in the early '50's a fledgling member of the new Indonesian nation, to share the world with her friends and family.

Since those early days, her career as dancer and teacher has taken her around the world teaching and performing on nearly every continent. Now, her concern is to keep the artistic and spiritual life and the natural beauty of Bali alive and intact into the future.