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What
Indonesia - Bali is all about ?
They
tear in and march rapidly rounds, dividing into two
files, and go through a lightning series of drill-formations
with jerking necks and shoulders, so that their great
leather bibs swing to and fro, their loose hair flops,
and their fringed epaulettes beat wildly up and down
like the fully, ineffectual wings bf chickens. They
massage their stomachs, they rock to and fro, they create
an atmosphere of frantic agitation: o beh! beh-o! Dinga
dinga ding djanger-er! They build groups on shoulders
in various shapes, one perhaps resembling a Tjandi bentar.
Certain of the Djanger boys' movements such as the beating
of one fist in the palm of the other hand, the shooting
up sideways of fluttering hands as if snatching accents
out of the air, a circular swaying from the hips and
ecstatic vibration of arms and bodies, remind one of
certain South Sea group-dances; there are some movements
borrowed from the stylized fight known as Pentjak, while
the acrobatic towers and the quick march round with
swinging arms are copied no doubt from Malay comedy
or the circus. It is not very important to define their
origin more closely.
Djanger
has, no doubt, borrowed from right and left, without
discrimination, and has imposed the unity of a patchwork
quilt on the heterogeneous fragments. Sometimes one
is reminded of action-games or the mechanically metrical
precision of chorus girls, though with an intensity
which the latter entirely lack; for the complicated
evolutions of the rocking, swaying, gesticulating rows
of boys who in spectral undertones or fiercely syncopated
syllables accompany the melody of the swaying girls
are performed in an atmosphere of frantic agitation.
The girls now enter in two files, the solo male dancer,
the Daag, between them. They move round slowly and gracefully,
then sink smoothly to the ground between their folded
knees, and remain in this position during the whole
performance, rising and falling and leaning to either
side in smooth unbroken motion, their eyes darting quick
glances, their hands weaving a pattern perpetually punctuated
with swift, discreet accent
And
all the time their song, whose parent was the Sanghyang
song, rises and falls with them. The Daag takes his
place in the centre of the square between the rows of
girls and the hectic rows of boys, who now sit cross-legged
facing each other, and never cease their syncopated
accompaniment of syllables and ejaculating limbs. He
does a kind of miming
dance, crouching on the ground or rising to full kneeling
height, and gradually shifting round so that he faces
each side of the square in turn. In spite of his splendid
dress and commanding appearance he has a bewildered
air as if he were registering astonishment at the organized
tumult around him. Occasionally a particularly frantic
movement will drive him to his feet; from time to time
he will -emit a prolonged cry, 'DA-A-AG!' which breaks
discordantly against the song of the choir and is the
signal for a general pause
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