Reinventing Tradition: New Dance in Indonesia, cont.

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New Dance of Bali

Dance and other performing arts have traditionally played significant roles in the practice of Balinese Hinduism. Yet they also serve a new role as performers enthusiastically recreate and reinvent them both as a form of bhakti (devotion to God) and as a form of "tourist art." It is not my aim to discuss the contradiction suggested by this development. What I want to illustrate instead is that, even while they serve Balinese Hindu ritual and ceremonies, traditional forms also serve the tourist industry and popular markets. Within the global marketplace and the flow of capital, a number of dance artists struggle to reinvent their traditions with great fervor and creativity.

There are two significant examples of reinvention of tradition from Bali. The first is Ritus Legong (2002), an ensemble work choreographed by Kadek Suardana; the second a solo entitled Bulan Mati (Full Moon) (2001) by a young choreographer, I Nyoman Sura.

1. Ritus Legong (2002).

About his work, Kadek Suardana writes,

Ritus Legong expresses the life values in traditional Balinese agrarian society. For them, happiness comes when they celebrate nature's fertility, though simultaneously they live with the challenges nature presents to their sustenance. This belief is cyclical and supports the relationship between Balinese farmers with the earth and the power that governs it including the supernatural influence. The choreography took its inspiration from the Ritual of Sanghyang as practiced in Bali. The two Legong dancers [are] meant to symbolize Dewi Sri, the Goddess of Fertility. Ritus Legong [is]... based on the essence of the classical Legong choreography [and] accompanied by the Gamelan Salonding.

Kadek choreographed Ritus Legong using conventional Balinese composition and bringing together different elements of performance genres (Legong, Barong, and Magenjekan, among others) to create a new form. The resulting choreography is new but the elements are familiar from the large family of forms in the Balinese performance tradition. Characterization and performance structure are maintained. Other traditional Balinese performance genres–Kecak, Prembon, and Topeng Panca–were also created in that way. Of course there are times when Kadek adds foreign elements, such as in his Baris China, Arja Sampek-Ingtay, and Gambuh Macbeth.

2. Bulan Mati (2001) by I Nyoman Sura

One section of Ritus Legong was choreographed by Kadek's assistant, a young Balinese dancer-choreographer named I Nyoman Sura. For IDF 2004, Sura developed this section into an intriguing solo work entitled Bulan Mati, which literally means "dead moon." Sura told me, "We, Balinese, always celebrate full moon or purnama with a ritual, after which the moon disappears and the dark reigns. The Balinese call it tilem: the moon is dead, we can no longer see the moon. When the moon is full, it is so perfect and white, pure and beautiful," But purnama (full moon) will always be followed by tilem (darkness). He wrote in IDF program:

The moon shines/to bring light/enlighten darkness/enliven human soul
The moon shines/to bring light/chasing the darkness
The moon is stabbed/[and dies]

Interestingly, in this age of globalization and digital communication, Sura was able to develop further his work only after watching a Hollywood film, The Cell (2000), featuring Jennifer Lopez. "In this film, I saw a beautiful scene where Lopez walks on the desert wearing a long white gown blown by the wind. All of a sudden I wanted to make a dance using such a long and white cloth that can be freely and creatively explored."

Sura uses much freedom in exploring makeup, costumes, properties, and music. While it remains to be seen whether it will be warmly received or rejected by traditional Balinese audiences, his work is an early creative and theatrical exploration that needs to be closely observed.

The contradictory issue of dancing for soul or for sale is rampant in Bali where religious belief and the tourism industry both play significant roles in people's daily lives. With the strong influence of globalization and the global market, unfortunately, many dance artists fail to reinvent their performance tradition with artistic integrity. To paraphrase the words of Hollywood film director Cecil B. de Mille, said after directing the Biblical epic The Ten Commandments, many Indonesian dance artists displace their Gods to worship three newly popular idols: fame, flesh, and funds.