Balinese dance is an ancient tradition dating back thousands of years that is part of the religious and artistic fabric of the Balinese culture in Indonesia.
Balinese dance is famous around the world, blending a dramatic display of music and colour in a dynamic, angular and highly dramatic way – illustrating stories from the Hindu religious text the Mahabarata. Balinese dancers express the stories of dance-drama through bodily movements that include finger, hand, head and eye gestures.
Most of the dances in Bali are connected to Hindu and traditional folk rituals, such as the Sanghyang Dedari sacred dance that invokes benevolent spirits, believed to take dancers into a trance-like state during the performance. Some are created uniquely to accompany Bali’s unique temple culture, including the Baris and Pendet welcoming dances, and the Joged, which is purely designed for entertainment during temple festivals.
In this way, the style and genres of traditional Balinese dance can be divided into three distinct types – sacred, semi-sacred and non-religious. All dances are performed by both male and female dancers, often dressed in brightly coloured, painted cloth showing floral and faunal motifs. These are often accessorised with gold-leafed and jewelled adornments.
The most famous Balinese dance is arguably the legong, which plays out several different stories from a collection of heroic romances called the Malat. The story is about a princess coveted by a neighbouring warlord. When he captures her after she gets lost in the forest he is attacked by a giant raven, which precedes his death.
Aside from the Mahabarata, inspiration often comes from nature or village life and combines dramatic movements that include a distinctive posture with the knees pointed outward and the midriff held in with hand and eye movements matched to the tempo of gamelan music and transitional progressions that reflect dramatic changes in the story.
In addition to being technically skilled, dance performers must have charisma and humility and special spiritual energy that enlivens the performance. Dance lessons often start at a very early age and are rigorous and disciplined. This training starts with the teaching of centuries-old hand positions and goes on to more difficult movements, sometimes performed solo and sometimes as a coordinated group.
Lessons often continue for years until students have fully memorised the dance sequences. Balinese dance forms a backbone to the island’s cultural identity and offers a solid grounding for the continuation of one of the world’s most revered and ancient civilisations.