This month, the people of Tenganan celebrated their new year with the sacred Usaba Kasa ceremony – Usaba Kasa is a series ceremony that celebrated the first month of Tenganan year). This year, the final day of Usaba Kasa ceremony was celebrated on 2/12/08 with sacred abuang dance of Tenganan’s boys and girls.

The sacred abuang dance began around 10 AM but the preparation of the ceremony that involved cooking and preparing the stage and musical instruments started around 7 AM. Around 9 AM, Tenganan children arrived in the venue of the ceremony with their finest geringsing cloths and beautiful gold jewelries. Around 10 AM the Tenganan’s girls arrived, their geringsing cloths and gold jewelries surpassed the beauty of their junior cloth and jewelries. After the girls took their place in the venue of the ceremony, the sacred Abuang dance was begun.

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From a tiny village of Tenganan comes the rare geringsing cloth that put this little village among the best in textile technology. The geringsing cloth with its double ikat technique – a method in which resist patterns are applied to both the wrap and the welt before weaving, so that the final pattern appears only on completion – is the most spectacular ever produced by the textile art in Southeast Asia.

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