Balinese Dance

Balinese dance, dynamic and agile is an exciting theatre, filled with sharp corner-turnings, intricate coordination of eyeball, finger, neck and shoulder movements. The dances are entertaining, elegant and captiviting, performed according to strict tradition: with no improvisation allowed on the movements learned and perfected since early childhood. Dances such as the Legong, the Baris and the Barong dance are sacred and ceremonial. These dances are becoming popular spectacular performance for the tourists.

The crisply percussive gamelan music which accompanies the dancers, shares their dynamism and agility. In almost every village, there is a gamelan orchestra. The sound of the gamelan orchestra could be heard at the ambience of almost every balmy evening, emanates from the village 'banjar' ( meeting place )

Click here to hear music

The Balinese consider art to be a natural activity. Peasants by day, artists by night, they are masters in expressing their religious beliefs and rituals into items of great artistic value from simple masks, statues and jewelry to wall sized panels using materials such as wood, stone, coral, bones, silver and gold. Painting and performance complete the picture; an example is the Barong mask painted for its main dance character.

The balinese traditional style of paintings depicts aspects of religious life or mystical characters. Such paintings are in sombre hues of yellow, red and black or sometimes plain charcoal. Contemporary adaptation and external influences have resulted in new themes. These are often expressed in vibrant colours, featuring people, animals and abstract imagery, that are different yet uniquely Balinese