Modern reconstruction of Balinese dances

Modern reconstruction of Balinese dances

By Benito Lopulalan

DENPASAR (JP): Dancers come and go, but its tradition that feeds and bonds the movement. This cliche is half-true in Bali. While several dances have laid dormant, others have been lost in the rush of time.

The mortality of dance is a reality anywhere. In Bali, dance has played a major role in developing the island's image as an anthropological and tourist paradise.

"In the sixties there were only three versions of the Legong dance left," comments Dr. Made Bandem, currently director of the Indonesian Academy of Arts in Denpasar. "With at least 15 versions of Legong, this figure was not impressive."

The impending threat to the dance raised concern, both for cultural and tourism reasons. "It was therefore decided to reconstruct some of the dormant versions of the dance. We have been doing this in recent years with the help of the Walter Spies Foundation," says Bandem, who is a managing member of the foundation.

The Walter Spies Foundation is organizing a Legong festival for April this year.

Legong is a dance of birds and of escaping princes or princesses. Lasem, Kebyar, Smaradhana, Koetir, Prabangsa are a few names of the many classical versions, some of which have been forgotten. The evolution of the dance owes as much to the dancers' interpretative creativity as to the reference stories. Most are derived from old Kawi literature. In the past, after learning a version of the dance from a local master, talented dancers were expected to develop their own interpretation of the dance.

"They sometimes did it to prove their own creativity, but at other times simply because they had been visited by a dream," says Mrs. Arini Alit, a famous dancer from Denpasar.

This leads to the risk that a dancer's eagerness to add their own touch to a dance could completely modify it. The old version might disappear unnoticed. Old versions survive if they have a specific function in the community. The fate of the dance depends on the creativity of its dancers and on its sacredness in the eyes of the community.

According to Dr. Jean Counteau, a prominent cultural observer in Bali, what is now fashionably called reconstruction is not new to Bali. The Balinese have long had a tradition of "sleeping deities." The dance is, in such instances, the "waking up" of the God, who performs as part of "its being there". Upon completion of the ceremony, the Batara (God) is put back to sleep, normally until the next festival, but sometimes for years. The deity usually wakes up after giving a "sign", such as a dream by a medium priest of an epidemic in the community.

The dormancy may last tens of years. In Sabha, a village in Gianyar regency, some versions of local Legong are said to have been dormant for 40 years. In Tista, a village in the district of Kerabitan, it has been extended to 60 years. In the surviving versions, the movements evolved -- or some say deteriorated -- considerably, probably due to changes in the social function of the dance.

"In my village no dancer, once they had been made a dancer by the community, would dare refuse to dance at its request. They were village dancers rather than individual talents," asserts Arini Alit, who produced a teaching program of Balinese dance at Denpasar's TVRI station between 1977 to 1987. "But in recent years, this has changed. Dancers now perform as individuals," Alit says. "Dancers, especially the young ones, dare to say no to a request from the community. That was impossible in my day."

Anak Agung Ketut, son of the famous Agung Raka of Shaba, has a political interpretation for the change. According to him, many dances lost their appeal because colonialism switched the priorities of the Balinese.

"Dances were considered unimportant, especially during the Japanese occupation," he assures. He added that many dances were lost during the years of war for independence. Dance is irrelevant to fighting people. "As a consequence, there are now dances which are only alive in the minds of their old and long inactive masters."

Reconstruction

Masters of dance have undoubtedly played a key role in the reconstruction of the dances. The late master Reneng devoted the last part of her life to revive the old spirit of Legong, especially in the village of Binoh on the outskirts of Denpasar. Others, like Agung Raka in Sabha and Kakul in Batuan, have followed her lead.

"Reconstruction would be impossible without the skill and memory of the old masters," explains Rucina Ballinger, an anthropologist and Balinese dancer.

"In my village, Sabha, the reconstruction program was started in 1977," said Anak Agung Ketut, recalling the time when the dancers of the village were deliberately reviving the old Legong of their village. The only person who remembered the movements was his father, Agung Raka, a teacher master of the dance in Sabha. "Some girls were called to start practicing. After several weeks, some were still eager to learn but others had dropped out."

Everyone thought it would be easy, but it wasn't. Even the masters couldn't reconstruct the dance movements at first. Their memory slowly came back until the whole sequence of movements was recreated in its supposed original form.

"Fortunately, the music repertoire had been preserved, so my father would use the melody to recreate the original movements.

"The music is very important. To pull any dance back from its dormancy, the sekehe must still exist with their original repertoire," explains Rucina Ballinger.

Sekehe is a club which regulates every activity in a Balinese village. All castes are admitted to it on equal footing with respect to the works to be performed and to the rights to be enjoyed. The clubs for dancers and musicians are necessarily related, and sometimes even merge into one. The sekehe gamelan consists not only of musicians and anyone involved in its activities, such as instrument repairers, but also donors. They can have a dozen to hundreds of members.

In Binoh, both the old masters and the sekehe took part in the reconstruction of the dance.

"We worked on it from 1973 to 1974, soon after Pak Sinti returned home from America," says Alit, referring to one of the master dancers who was one of the main supporters of the Legong in the village. In 1973, after several years of studying in America, Sinti returned home. He had learned new methods to reconstruct dance while he was away. Luckily, the music repertoire had been kept alive by the sekehe of the village. This was due to the fact that the gamelan orchestra in Binoh is slightly different from that of other villages.

"In the old days, this kind of gamelan was very ordinary. But later, it became unpopular and now only Binoh has the complete set."

Like in many other villages, the Binoh reconstruction effort was helped with foreign funding. The Asia Society, the Ford Foundation and others have supported the reemergence of the Balinese heritage with billions of rupiah.

Preservation

What will happen to the reconstruction of dance in the rapidly changing Balinese society? Some dances are communally owned and are therefore performed only on social or religious occasions. If a dance disappears, does it mean that the community no longer needs it?

"All traditions are faced with the problem of preservation," says Christina Formaggio, an anthropologist and dancer, referring to the Gambuh dance preservation project. Gambuh is said to be the source of the Legong corpus of movements.

"I think the disappearance of traditions in many countries should be a lesson on the need to preserve what remains in Bali."

She emphasized that the change is due mainly to the flood of B movies and the development of tourism, which turns tradition into a commodity. She considers that "putting tradition under the umbrella of tourism" is particularly dangerous because it changes the rules of social interaction. "It is not only dance which is deteriorating," she maintains.

Some observers are keen to accuse the Academy of Arts in Denpasar of standardizing Balinese dances down to the village level. "The patterns of dances taught by the academy reverberate throughout the island," says Aryantha Soetama, a writer and arts observer in Denpasar, "It could make the styles of individual villages disappear." He refers in particular to the dance instruction programs that have reached many villages and have influenced dancers. Many village dancers now dance in the academy's style.

Made Bandem, director of the academy, doesn't contest the fact. "There is nothing wrong with new creators. All societies have their own forms of change and continuity," he comments. He mentions that reconstruction is the continuity he is referring to. "It is impossible to stop creativity. Besides, in many Balinese villages, some of the new creations are also performed in temples and are well accepted. The Balinese as a whole have a very good understanding of what they regard as dance." It isn't the new creators' fault if their dances are accepted.

With or without any modern institutions, change is unavoidable and remains "center stage". As Jean Couteau insists, "The center of education in Balinese dance, and the arts in general, are the urban artists and tourism marketers. They are completely revamping what we consider Balinese art."

The reconstructions themselves are never without change. Some revived dances, supposedly reshaped alongside their original form, are actually simplified versions of the dance of reference. "In their original forms, they took about 45 minutes. The reconstruction cuts out some repetitious movements," explains Bandem. "The most important thing is that we don't change the meaning and the significance of the original dance."

Sudibya, a dancer and lecturer at the academy in Denpasar, comments, "Some hoteliers reduce it even more. Many dances are often performed in half the time or even a quarter of the time."

The reconstruction of dances has two faces, the first is traditional continuity, the other is embedded in marketing. Any dance, reconstructed or newly-created, is a tourism commodity.