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Among the many forms of Balinese dance-drama Ardja corresponds most nearly to our idea of opera, or rather of musical comedy. It is almost entirely sung, and good voices, lively dancing, brilliant clowning, and occasionally pretty girls, make it almost the most popular of dance-forms among the Balinese. The word Ardja calls up the sound of high-pitched, wailing melodies, a peculiar swinging cadence of the speaking voice, the slow coiling dance of flower-crowned figures who droop frequently in lamentation; impassioned chidings and chastising, but above all, alas, interminable hours of verbal clowning relieved now and then by a brilliant bout of comic dancing and m1minginterminable hours during which the serious actors in the romantic story sit in motionless inaction beside the gamelan.

As far as the oldest memories in Bali go back, Ardja was always there, though in a sterner form than at present. For it was sung and danced entirely by men, without any instrumental accompaniment, and with a very slight comic element, if any. It is impossible to trace the steps in the development of Ardja from its original stem pattern. No doubt the substitution of pretty girls for ugly old men in all the principal parts was a great help to its popularity. A few years ago the principal parts were played entirely by girls, and this charming form of Ardja is still practiced in certain villages; but the fashion is always changing, and though Ardja still tends to fluctuate between a preponderance of male and female actors, there is now a reaction in favour of men in every part, on account of their better voices, perhaps also of their greater endurance, certainly of their talent for knockabout. In an average cast the male and comic female parts will be played by men, and the romantic female parts by girls.

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