“Balinese art is an indispensable part of Balinese religion, culture and life.”

“Art is identical with religion, art creativity is a performance of the religious teaching” this quotation indicates the unity of art and religion in Bali. It is hard to differentiate between art and religion without deep understanding on art and religion of Bali. Since every ceremony contains art performance in it and every art performance is loaded with the values and teachings of religion. The unity of art and religion ensures that the art be constantly practiced and become part of Balinese life.

Balinese life is surrounded by art from earliest childhood, ever-present everywhere and every time. Everyone down to the simplest peasant can be both an artist and an aesthetically conscious art critic. A field-laborer might chide a clumsy instrument maker for a job poorly done, and even a young food stall seller from a humble family is skilled practitioner of Bali classical dance.

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Hierarchy is an important notion in Bali and still plays a dominant role in Balinese culture. In Bali, hierarchy is believed to be the foundation of order in the family, society, even in the universe. Most aspects of Balinese culture are influenced by this hierarchal system. In short, everything in Bali is set with hierarchal order.

Space and direction are ranked from the most auspicious mountainwards (kaja) to the least auspicious seawards (kelod). House compound is set with standard hierarchal order in which family temple occupy the most auspicious place (kaja), house for the Balinese occupy the middle area and pigsty occupy the least auspicious place (kelod). Person is ranked base on their caste, Brahmana (high priest), Ksatrya (nobleman), Wesya (gentry), and Jaba (commoner) though some reformist abhorred this idea. Priests are elaborately ranked by their kin group, the level of initiation rituals that have been done for them, and the size of temple they tend. Like persons, ancestors and deities are ranked, sometimes indicated by the number of levels (meru) on their shrines. Language is ranked from refined (alus), common (kepara), and rough (kasar). Religious ceremony is ranked from small (alit), medium (madya), and large (agung). Even the cosmos itself is ranked, from demonic beings and animals, to humanity, to ancestors and gods.

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The sleepy fishing village of Sanur was developed as Bali’s first resort to accommodate the needs to international travelers. But long before the arrival of tourists, this enchanting beach front destination was home to renowned Belgian artist, Adrien Jean Le Mayeur de Merpres. His home
is now a museum and stands as an interesting site of historical significance located on the Sanur beach walkway just 30-meters north of the famous Bali Beach Hotel.

http://www.tropicalisland.de

Born in 1880, Le Mayeur was the youngest son of a noble Belgian family. As an adult he was passionate about travel and spent time exploring various countries before arriving on Bali’s shores in 1932. Spellbound by the sights and sounds of the island, he journeyed south to Denpasar
where he rented a small house and chose to live within a Balinese community, much to the displeasure to the ruling Dutch authorities.

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The Java-Bali fusion dance storms the world of contemporary dance. The fusion of Bedaya Ketawang and Legong Calonarang brings a new touch in the contemporary dance performance. The fusion of these very different rivets the audiences in their chairs.

The Bedaya Ketawang is a sacred Javanese dance, which commemorate the union between the first Sultan of Java and the Goddess of South Sea, Kandjeng Ratu Kidul. Nowadays, the dance is performed only once a year to celebrate the day Sultan ascended to the throne. This sacred dance exhibits the calm and elegant movements that are the hallmark of Javanese mystical dance.

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Children in Bali before their first tooth loosing are considered as a representative of god. They are not responsible for their action because as Balinese believes, their mind is still undeveloped. It is the god within them that acts through their body. The parents do not intimidate their child, but rather coax him into obedience as an equal. Balinese father tend to show more affection than mother, it is an usual sight to see a father takes a walk, and play with his child, sometimes talk with his child as if he is a grown up.

In Bali, especially in the rural area, child seldom has a chance to be pampered. No child has more than minimum of adult attention. No sooner is the infant weaned, than it goes into the care of another child. The growing infant find himself immediately part of child society, to which he must adjust himself. The child grows among other children as a children’s republic, with an independent life of its own. Only by independence and lack of pampering can one explain the well-mannered seriousness and the self-sufficiency of Balinese children.

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A chorus or men who utter the syllable “c(h)ak” with many variation and without instrumental accompaniment; originally accompanied sanghyang dance in the villages, but was adapted by Europeans to a new form called, popularly, “monkey dance” that performed for tourists.

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