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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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