MUSIC

THE DANCE
A FOCUS OF BALINESE LIFE

Next to having good orchestras, a fine group of dancers is an almost organic need for the spiritual and physical life of the community. Besides the passion they show for their music and dancing and the important part these play in the ritual, to have a skilful and famous group of dancers brings pride and social prestige to the village ward, the bandjar.

The young men of today are fond of football games, but all other attempts to introduce foreign amusements have failed in Bali. The rare movie shows in the two large towns are patronized almost exclusively by the foreign population, and not even the rich princes like phonographs, although there are excellent records of Balinese music. I do not know anyone who has a radio.

Balinese dancing is essentially for exhibition: dancing to entertain an audience and for display of skill, a stage of development that belongs to an advanced civilization, but that in Bali goes hand in hand with the ritual-magic dances characteristic of primitive peoples. Thus the survival of the primitive in a developed society, a characteristic of everything Balinese, shows itself in the dancing as well as in the general mode of life. In the religious dances the community amuses itself at the same time that it tries to propitiate the gods and ward off evil spirits.

There are even violent self-sacrificial dances in which the performers in a trance simulate self-torture with knives or walk on fire to appease the bloodthirsty evil spirits and to show their supernatural powers.

The Balinese attribute a divine origin to music and dancing. It is said that Batara Guru, the Supreme Teacher, invented the first instruments, and that Indra, the Lord of the Heavens, originated dancing when he created the incomparably beautiful dedari, the nymphs of heaven, to dance for the pleasure of the gods. In the Ardjuna Wiwaha it is mentioned that the seven principal dedari were made from a precious stone that was split into seven parts. Before dancing for the assembled gods, the nymphs, the legend says, walked three times around them in the usual respectful manner; the gods became lovesick, and since their dignity prevented them from turning around, Indra sprung many eyes, and Brahma developed four faces.

Balinese dancing was, perhaps, originally restricted to the ritual, but the religious dance has become more and more theatrical; characters that were once frightful demons are now tamed to perform for the amusement of the crowd. There are, however, still many purely religious or magical dances; local priests (pemangku, kabayan, and so forth) of the old communities still dance solemnly at temple feasts, in front of the altars, holding incense-burners, even going into a trance and walking in fire.

Only in Bali have I seen wrinkled old women with white hair dancing to amuse the gods, splendidly unashamed of what would be normally the attribute of youth. At temple feasts they perform the mendet and the redjang, two dances mainly for " aged "women - married women - with offerings of food to the visiting deities.

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