Kumara Sari Children's Gamelan & Dance Club at ARMA

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.