Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in a typically Balinese stalemate: the forces of good and evil remain as strong and vital as
ever, ready to clash again in the next bout.
The
Calonarang
is an embellished version of the Barong-Rangda conflict, grafted onto an
ancient legend about the daughter of a witch queen whom no one will marry because they're
scared of her mother. The witch queen Calonarang is a manifestation of Rangda who, furious
at the lack of suitors for her daughter, demands that her followers wreak destruction in all
the villages. This drama is acted out on a regular basis, whenever there are considered to be
evil forces and impurities affecting the community, and sometimes the whole neighbourhood
takes part, the men parading with hand-held
kulkul
drums and the women filing in to make
offerings at the temple shrines.
There's also an unusual human version of the Barong, called
Barong Landung
(“Tall
Barong”), which feature two huge puppets. The forbidding male puppet represents the mali-
cious giant from Nusa Penida, Jero Gede; the far sweeter-looking female is the smiling Jero
Luh. Together they act out a bawdy comic opera, which also has exorcist purposes.
Kecak
Sometimes called the
Monkey Dance
after the animals represented by the chorus, the
Kecak
gets its Balinese name from the hypnotic chattering sounds made by the a cappella choir.
Chanting nothing more than “cak cak cak cak”, the chorus of fifty or more men uses seven
different rhythms to create the astonishing music that accompanies the drama. Bare-chested,
and wearing lengths of black-and-white-check
kain poleng
cloth around their waists and a
single red hibiscus behind the ear, the men sit cross-legged in five or six tight concentric
circles. The
narrative
itself is taken from a core episode of the Ramayana, centring around
the kidnap of Sita by the demon king Rawana, and is acted out in the middle of the chorus
circle, with one or two narrators speaking for all the characters.
Although frequently attributed to the German artist and musician Walter Spies, the main
creative force behind the Kecak was the famous Baris dancer
I Wayan Limbak
, who lived
in Bedulu in Gianyar. In 1931 he developed the chants from the Sanghyang trance dances, in
which the chorus chants the “cak cak cak” syncopation as part of the trance-inducing ritual,
and created accompanying choreography to flesh out the episode from the Ramayana.
