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What
Indonesia - Bali is all about ?
A
Boris dancer, in the customary dress, hung with stoles,
and with the usual head-dress and tight leggings, advances
from behind the umbrellas. He is the patih, who has
been sent to inquire into the health of the chickens.
He dances a complete Baris gilak, bapang, gilak--and
coming in front of the offerings cries ecstatically,
puffing out his cheeks with his vibrating tongue. The
dance proceeds as in the usual Baris Melampahon, with
dialogues between the soloist and his penasar, and fierce
processions round the stage,while e chorus still kneels
unparticipating on the ground.
The Boris soloist and his attendants seem to see a portent
in the sky. On the temple steps appears a great bird
with wide wings of palm-leaf and a green bird-mask,
surmounted by a raja's head-dress. A tail of paper feathers
spreads behind him. He crouches between the umbrellas,
peers to and fro with guick birdlike movements, leaps
low on two feet, then rises.
At
last it drops from his hand and he falls helpless to
the ground while the princess sings above him. Now it
is his turn to implore. He falls before her, embracing
her hips, his fingers tremble up and down as he prays
at her feet. Galoeh Daha makes offerings and is led
slowly forward by her Inia, weeping hopelessly. She
has resolved to die. She is reconciled with the penasar
in an exquisite scene of tender, delicately balanced
movement, goes voluntarily into ascesis, and is killed
by the spell of a knotted leaf which the penasar holds
over her. She is laid on the mattress and covered with
a white sheet; offerings are placed at the foot, and
the headless body of a tiny chicken flutters over the
dance-floor. And now all present see a vision in the
sky.
Her
soul is flying to heaven. The penasar and the jester
chant at a distance, then fall overwhelmed with grief
on her body. She must lie under her winding-sheet for
hours, fanned occasionally by a priest; while on the
stage the gradual disenchantment of Koripan takes place.
It is the moment for a comic interlude and all the humors
are let loose. The guying of the Likoe and her lady
begins; their head-dresses are swept off; they are painted
with white chalk and led about like baited bears, squealing
and appealing for mercy. Koripan, tragic in his despair,
winds singing in desperate lamentation over the stage.
At last he retires behind the curtain and an extremely
ornate pedanda with a tremendous voice sweeps out and
listens to the confession of the penasar who killed
the princess.
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