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Sumunar Youth Gamelan from Bill Cunningham on Vimeo.
Kecak Dance
History
Kecak was originally a trance ritual accompanied by male chorus. German painter and musician Walter Spies became deeply interested in the ritual while living in Bali in the 1930s and worked to recreate it into a drama, based on the Hindu Ramayana and including dance, intended to be presented to Western tourist audiences. This transformation is an example of what James Clifford describes as part of the "modern art-culture system" in which, "the West or the central power adopts, transforms, and consumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements, while making 'art' which was once embedded in the culture as a whole, into a separate entity." Spies worked with Wayan Limbak and Limbak popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels have helped to make the Kecak famous throughout the world.
Performer, choreographer, and scholar I Wayan Dibia cites a contrasting theory that the Balinese were already developing the form when Spies arrived on the island.[5] For example, well-known dancer I Limbak had incorporated Baris movements into the cak leader role during the 1920s. "Spies liked this innovation," and it suggested that Limbak, "devise a spectacle based on the Ramayana," accompanied by cak chorus rather than gamelan, as would have been usual.
(source: http://www.wikipedia.org)
Barong is a character in the mythology of Bali. He is the king of the spirits, leader of the hosts of good, and enemy of Rangda in the mythological traditions of Bali. Banas Pati Rajah is the fourth "brother" or spirit child that accompanies a child throughout life. Banas Pati Rajah is the spirit which animates Barong. A protector spirit, he is often represented by a lion, and traditional performances of his struggles against Rangda are popular parts of Balinese culture. The Barong is often portraited with two monkeys.
The animal/ mythical creature would dance along the street to the calonarang dance. A priest would throw Holy Water at it. It is known as the Demon Queen and Mother of All Spirit Guarders.
The lion barong is one of five traditional Barong. In Bali each region of the island has its own protective spirit for its forests and lands. Each Barong for each region is modeled after a different animal. There is a boar, a tiger, a dragon (or serpent) and the traditional lion. The lion is the popular one as it comes from the Gianyar region where Ubud (the home of tourist viewed ritual) is located. Within the calonarang, the dance drama in which the Barong appears, the barong responds to Rangda's use of magic to control and kill her to restore balance.
Legong probably originated in the 19th century as royal entertainment. Legend has it that a prince of Sukwati fell ill and had a vivid dream in which two maidens danced to gamelan music. When he recovered, he arranged for such dances to be performed in reality. Others believe that the Legong originated with the sanghyang dedari, a ceremony involving voluntary possession of two little girls by beneficent spirits. Legong is also danced at public festivals. Excerpts from Legong dance dramas are put on for tourists.
Legong dancers are always girls who have not yet reached puberty. They begin rigorous training at about the age of five. These dancers are regarded highly in the society and usually becomes wives of royal personages or wealthy merchants.
Classical Legong enacts several traditional stories. The most common is the tale of the King of Lasem from the Malat, a collection of heroic romances. He is at war with another king, the father (or brother) of Princess Ranjasari. Lasem wants to marry the girl, but she detests him and tries to run away. Becoming lost in the forest, she is captured by Lasem, who imprisons her and goes out for a final assault against her family. He is attacked by a monstrous raven, which foretells his death.
The dramatics are enacted in elaborate and stylized pantomime. The two little actresses are accompanied by a third dancer called a tjondong or attendant. She sets the scene, presents the dancers with their fans and later plays the part of the raven.
Jaipongan, also known as Jaipong, is a popular traditional dance of Sundanese people, West Java, Indonesia. The dance was created by Gugum Gumbira, based on traditional Sundanese Ketuk Tilu music and Pencak Silat movements.
Jaipongan, also known as jaipong, is a musical performance genre of the Sundanese people in the Sundanese language of West Java, Indonesia. Jaipongan includes revived indigenous arts, like gamelan, but it also did not ignore Western music completely despite the ban on rock and roll. It used its sensuality and the sensuality found in a traditional village music and dance, ketuk tilu. However, many believe it is something purely Indonesian or Sundanese in origin and style. It is developed predominately from rural folk forms and traditions as a purely indigenous form. The rise of cassettes and films has led to the popularity of the musical form of jaipongan. It has spread from its home in West Java’s Sunda, to greater Java and Indonesia. It can be seen as many regional varieties of gong-chime performance found through much of Indonesia. As also an urban dance form, it is based primarily on the village forms of ketuk tilu and on the Indonesian martial arts, pencak silat. The musical genre is largely influenced from ketuk tilu with traces of the masked theater dance, topeng banjet and the wayang golek puppet theater. Ketuk tilu is its biggest influence, as a traditional Sudanese musical entertainment form.
Gong-chime performance is characterized by such features as: use of an ensemble dominated by idiophones, metallophones and knobbed gongs. It is a stratified polyphony, with lower-pitch instruments playing parts of lesser density and all parts are structured colotomically around time-cycles. This can be found in traditional Indonesian gamelan. There is improvisation on certain instruments. The modes used are grouped into two broad types: slendro and pelog.
Ketuk tilu was a musical genre based off ritual and celebration in the villages of the Sundanese people, meaning three kettle gongs. It was known for complex drumming coordinated with equally dynamic solo female dancers. The music was performed for planting and harvesting rituals and later celebrated village life, circumcision and marriage, expressed fertility, and displayed sensuality, eroticism and even sometimes “socially accepted prostitution.” Ketuk tilu was very popular in the Sundanese villages, but the urban Sundanese considered it unrefined and inappropriate because the music involved males and females dancing together suggestively, or mixed dancing between men and ronggeng, or prostitutes. Ronggeng probably has existed in Java since ancient time, the bas reliefs in Karmawibhanga section on Borobudur displays the scene of travelling entertainment troupe with musicians and female dancers.
Jaipong is less strictly associated with ceremonial functions, but performances are common in the Rayagung festival month, and with circumcisions and marriages. The performances now have the character of secular social functions, attended by young and old, primarily for entertainment and socializing. Public performance is now extremely frequent especially in clubs or street performances.
The cassette industry and its boom in Indonesia helped popularize jaipongan greatly and promoted regional styles rather than hurt them. Many learned the dance through cassette rather than the performance. The mass media have made jaipong ubiquitous. It has created competition in the styles of the drummers among ensembles. It has also helped to bring about many dance schools, altering dance and its label on females in West Java.
The song repertoire of jaipongan is varied, and that is why it is better understood as an intertwined performance style of music and dance. Many songs are associated with ketuk tilu or other wide reaching regional varieties, not traditional gamelan. It consists of songs of more recent origin often composed for jaipongan. Song topics vary, encompassing amatory, moralistic, bawdy, topical and spiritual subjects, often emphasizing grass roots culture.
Kipas Dance: The kipas (literally means fan) is a folding fan which people used to keep themselves cool in Southeast Asia's tropical heat. Although created in China (where it is known as tieshan), the fan is common to many Asian cultures, as can be seen in traditional Indonesian-Malay dances. As a weapon the fan should be able to open and close easily with one hand, particularly if two are being wielded at once. Usually made of bamboo, more combat-worthy kipas are constructed from harder wood or iron. The smallest fans measure only six centimetres in length but some are quite large and can reach as many as fifty centimetres long.
It’s an energetic, dynamic and require excellent coordination among its players. The movements are intense and powerful because, those movements also formed the rhythm for the dance. Because beside the sound of claps, chest slapping or hand hitting the floor there’s only one person reading a narrative in Acehnese tone. If it’s not powerful then nobody will hear anything and if it’s out of control, not only it will ruin the rhythm but somebody may get hurt. However, those are the charm of this dance. It’s dynamic and excellent coordination.
Eight to twenty male performers kneel in a row on the floor and make different kinds of torso movements accompanied by songs, clapping hands, slapping chests, slapping hands on the floor, etc. The songs usually are praises to Allah or prayers or part of Islamic teachings. The dance starts with slow movements and increases its tempo gradually to great speed and finally come to a sudden stop. There are many different regional versions of “Saman”.
