Bali has a unique culture which is mainly based on a strong sense of spirituality. The main religion of Bali is Agama Hindu Dharma, which is a mixture of animism, Buddhism and Hinduism, and as such it is very different from the Hinduism we find in India.
The Balinese are a very creative people, which is among others expressed in their typical crafts and arts, such as woodcarving, sculpturing and paintings.
Balinese music and dance
Traditional Balinese dance has in almost all cases a religious background, and are performed during important religious ceremonies at the temples of Bali. Since tourism started to play an important role to the economy of Bali, dance performances are nowadays also organized outside of the temples, especially for tourists. However if you wish to experience traditional dance as it was meant to be, you really should go to a temple during an important ceremony, to absorb the special ambiance and atmosphere of the dance.
The Legong is a well known religious Balinese dance and probably the most gracious of all Balinese dances. There are several types of Legong dance. The most popular may be the Legong Keraton dance, which is performed by a young female dancer. The Legong dancers wear a very tight costume of gold brocade and their make-up is very elaborate. The story of the Legong is about a king who captures a maiden. The brother of the maiden comes to rescue her. The king refuses to release her and fights the brother in a war. A bird brings the king a bad omen however the king ignores the message of the bird and he eventually gets killed in the fight with the brother.
The Baris dance can be regarded as the male version of the Legong. This dance is performed by a sole male dancer, with a lot of energy, skill and with a warlike martial spirit, expressed in his movements and his facial expressions. This dance depicts the thoughts and emotions of a warrior who is preparing to go to battle, as well as the confrontation with his enemy in the battle.
The Barong dance feautures the protector of the village, represented as an exotic, mythical animal an often resembles a bear, a lion or a dog with long fangs and manes and bulging eyes. The creature is manoevered by two men with mischievous movements to represent its fun loving nature. The barong has an opponent called the Rangda. Barong and Rangda represent two opposites, like white and black, day and night, or good and bad. The Rangda is an evil witch who rules over the spirits of the Underworld. The Barong and Rangda fight a duel in which they each try to overcome each other with magical powers. At the moment the Barong becomes under the spell of Rangda, helpers turn up trying to stab and weaken Rangda with their keris. Then Rangda puts a spell on the helpers so they try to stab themselves, but the magical powers of the Barong luckily are stronger and he casts a spell on the kerisses to prevent the helpers get hurt by their keris. Eventually the Rangda draws back and once more good defeats evil.
The most famous of the Balinese dances is the Kecak dance. The Kecak developed in the 1930's in the village of Bona as a trance inducing excorcism ritual accompanied by male voices. Walter Spiess, a German artist who lived in Bali in the 1930s, recreated this ritual into a drama, based on the Hindu Ramayana epic and intended to be performed to tourist audiences. In the new choreography the dance is performed by a circle of about 150 male dancer wearing a black-and-white blocked sarong around their waists, percussively chanting 'tjakkejak-tjak-tjak-tjak-tjak-tjak' and throwing up their arms.
