This is basically a story about the stuggle between good an evil. good is personified by the barong keket, a strange, fun-loving creature in the shape of a shaggy semilion. Evil is represented by rangda, a witch. Ultimately, the two characters engage in battle, at which point the barong's keris-bearing follpwers rush in to attack rangda. the witch, however,uses her magical powers to turn the keris knives in upon their owners, who fall into a trance and start trying to stab themselves. The Barong uses magic to protect his followers from the knives in the end, the barong triumphs and rangda retreats to recuperate her strength for the next encounter. all that remains is for a priest to help the keris dancers out of their trance, with the help of a little holy water. the barong and rangda dance is a very powerful performance and is not taken lightly by those involved.
Legong Dance This dance tells the story of princess rangkesari who is held captive against her will by king lakesmi. rangkesari's brother, prince daha, gathers an army together to rescue his sister. princess rangkesari then tries to persuade lakesmi to let go to avoid a war, but he denies her her freedom, onhis way to battle, daha is attacked by a raven, a bad omen, and is later killed in battle. the dance only takes the story up to the point where the king departs for battle. and it isperformed by three people, two legongs and their attendant, the' condong' . the legong is a very classical and graceful dance, and is always performed by pre-pubes-cent girls, often as young as eight or nine years old.
Sanghyang Trance DancesThe Sanghyang is a divine force that enters the bodies of the entranced dancers. there are number of sanghyang dances, but the most common are the sanghyang dedari is performed by two girls, and is very similar in style to the legong ; the main difference is that the sanghyang dedari girls are supposedly untrained and can keep in perfect time with each other, even though their eyes are firmly shut. the accompanying music is provided by a female choir and a male kecak choir. in the sanghyang jaran, a boy dances around ang through a fire, riding a coconut palm hoby-horse. this a frequently called the " fire dance ",for the sake of tourists. in both dances, a priest is always on hand to help bring the dancers out of their trance - state at the end of performance.
Kecak DancesThe most famous of the balinese dances, the kecak, originated from the sanghyang dance choirs, who chant a distinctive " kechak kechak" accompaniment. the kecak, as a dance developed in the 1930' in the village pf bona,where a still performed regularly. the theme is taken from the ramayana and tells the story of rama, who, with the help pf the evil king rawana. this is a veryexciting dance to watch, and is performed by a large group of chanting men sitting in a circle, waving their arms and swaying to and fro, in time with the chants.
Baris DancesThis is a warrior's dance.it is usally performed by a men, either solo, or in group of 5 more; the dancers try to portray the full range of emotions displayed by a warior anger, courage, ferocity and passion. this dance requires great skill, with the artistfaving to display the whole range on inner emotions, mainly through facial expression.
Topeng ( Mask ) DancesIn bali, mask are considered sacred objects, and are revered as such. the best ones are traditionally carved on auspicious days, and the dancers who wear them are believed to be possesed by the spirits of the mask. characters can be identified from the shape of the features; noble characters always wear full, refined mask; while evil is represented by bulging eyes and garish colours. the characters silent, but communicate using complex gestures of the hand, head and body. the story lines usually follow popular mysths, or episodes from history.
Wayang kulitWayang kulit ( shadow puppet ) is one of the great story telling traditions of the javanese and balinese. the wayang show normally consists of a small 4-piece orchestra, which provides the musical accompaniment, around 60' puppets' carved out of flat pieces of water buffalo hide, and the dalang, or puppet-master. the dalang has to be both incredibly skilled, as well as knowledgeable. he not only manipulates allthe puppets, but has to provide a different ' voice' for each one. with good characters normally speakingin ancient ' kawi' and evil or coarse characters speaking balinese; the dalang, therefore, has to be fluent in both languages. although traditonal dramas cover a wide variety of themes, the most popular are stories taken from the mahabarata.
