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Regular Show
There are many Barong dance stages in Bali with regular show,
both daily, or certain days that is appointed according to
customer they serve. Well known stages are in the town of
Batublan and east Denpasar or Kesiman. In the town of Batubulan
there are at least 4 stages known so far, but the most active
with daily schedule of performance are only 3 which location
is close each other. All stages are made in traditional Balinese
stages, with typical decoration, moated brick wall and entrance
at some places, and typical temple and Balinese meeting hall architecture.
Balinese Mixed Performance Art
Barong dance is also known as Barong dan Kriss dance is a
mixed Balinese traditional dance, drama and music. The story
is correlated with the struggle between the benevolence and
bad spirit which is inspired by Ramayana Epic of India and
the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. This is shown by the personalization
of good spirit with Barong dance, a creature resembling a
tiger, and the bad spirit by a witch with ugly physical appearance, even frightening.
Performance Stages
The dance is started at 9.30 AM with the rhythmic of Balinese
traditional music called Gong. After 5 or 10 minutes the melody
of Gong change suddenly and from the screen appear 2 girls
with Balinese traditional beautiful dressing. These 2 girls
perform the most feminism dance, showing how beautiful is
the body of women and their ability to move very flexibly,
following the tension and downturn of the music. Finalizing
the dance, the Prime Minister of the kingdom of Ayodya Pura
appears on the stage, expressing his difficult position in
the kingdom as the Princess wish to sacrifice her 2 youngest
sons to the king of Demon. The Prime Minister is getting pressure
from high dignitaries to refuse the plan of the Princess,
and is ordered to present before the Princess expressing the
reason that the sacrifice is not necessary. Yet the people
have been to much suffering from the disease and malicious
action of the demon if the sons are not sacrificed. It is
a great dilemma for the Princes, weather she should depend
her sons or the people. With the explanation the Prime Minister
promise to the Princess that he will do his utmost to fight
the demon and safe the people and the young princess. Following
the disappearance of Prime Minister and the Princess from
the stage appear the servants of the Demon with ugly faces
performing disoriented dances. This is to show how frightening
is the existence of a demon with it's servants. Here the two
main clowns appear on the stage and fight the demon servants.
Most Barong dance have good clowns, as this part is actually
the most interesting for the people who are able to make people
laughing with her action on the stage. for those who do not
even understand the language they spoken on the stage. The
defeat of Demon servant following by the appearance of Princess
with the Prime Minister again in a quarrel for disagreement
of the scarification of the youngest sons. Yet the king of
Demon knows the conflict and soon send magic influence to
the Prime Minister and change their mind to agree. Then the
Prime Minister drag the 2 sons to be tied on a tree in the
forest to be sacrificed to the king of Demon. As soon as Prime
Minister left the boys in the forest the king of Demon appear
on the stage which is called Rangda. The appearance of Rangda
is really frightening in the perception of Balinese. Long
fangs and teeth, big and long breasts, curling and messy long
hair, hand nails are arching and long. With short dance by
the player of Rangda, then she soon approach the tied son,
yet suddenly the holy spirit of Bhatara Guru presence and
safe the boys. In the situation of really disoriented, the
Barong appear on the stage fight the Rangda. No one of them
can defeat each other, and soon the servant of Barong around
10 or more men in checquered cloth appear with kriss on hand
to defeat Rangda. Yet due to her strong magic power Rangda
spread the invisible power to servants. Since they are stirred
by the magic, they in contrary stab themselves with their
own Kriss. Some of the servants got trance and other still
dancing while stabbing themselves seriously as it is seemed
to be. A Pemangku or local priest with all white dress then
appear with holy water and spread the holy water to the trance
servants. By this the dance is finalized and the audiences
can come to the stage to take photo together with the dancers.
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The beauty of Bali
Island has long been known world wide. It is true that the
beauty appears from her various living art, yet also her natural
views such as tropical white beaches, mountains, lakes and
man made natural view such as rice terraces carved on the
sloping land for the use of rice cultivation. The combination
among various cultural aspects and natural
beauty of Bali will give a different experience for everyone visiting
the island beside the hospitability of her people. Dances,
carvings, paintings, music are on the top of Bali's interesting
aspects for people visiting the island. Visit interesing
places. |
