The
Village orchestras
Next
to having good orchestras, a fine group of dancers is an almost
organic need for the spiritual and physical life of the community.
Besides the passion they show for their music and dancing and
the important part these play in the ritual, to have a skilful
and famous group of dancers brings pride and social prestige to
the village ward, the bandjar. The young men of today are fond
of football games, but all other attempts to introduce foreign
amusements have failed in Bali.
The rare movie shows in the two large towns are patronized almost
exclusively by the foreign population, and not even the rich princes
like phonographs, although there are excellent records of Balinese
music. I do not know anyone who has a radio.
Balinese
dancing is essentially for exhibition: dancing to entertain an
audience and for display of skill, a stage of development that
belongs to an advanced civilization, but that in Bali goes hand
in hand with the ritual-magic dances characteristic of primitive
peoples. Thus the survival of the primitive in a developed society,
a characteristic of everything Balinese, shows itself in the dancing
as well as in the general mode of life. In the religious dances
the community amuses itself at the same time that it tries to
propitiate the gods and ward off evil spirits. There are even
violent self-sacrificial dances in which the performers in a trance
simulate self-torture with knives or walk on fire to appease the
bloodthirsty evil spirits and to show their supernatural powers.
The
Balinese attribute a divine origin music and dancing. It is said
that Batara Guru, the Supreme Teacher, invented the first instruments,
and that Indra, the Lord of the Heavens, originated dancing when
he created the incomparably beautiful dedari, the nymphs of heaven,
to dance for the pleasure of the gods. In the Ardjuna Wiwaha it
is mentioned that the seven principal dedari were made from a
precious stone that,was split into seven parts. Before dancing
for the assembled gods, the nymphs, the legend says, walked three
times around them in the usual respectful manner; the gods became
lovesick, and since their. dignity prevented them from turning
around, Indra sprung many eyes, and brahma developed four faces.
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