Cak or Kecak is a contemporary Balinese dance, a secular dance that its origin can be traced to the sacred Sanghyang dance. This dance was first created by dancers in Bedulu village, Gianyar regency, at the request of Walter Spies. The group was commissioned to devise a new kind of dramatic performance which is based on Ramayana epic, accompanied solely by a chorus like that found in sacred Sanghyang Dedari performance. In that old sacred rite, the choral group consist of perhaps a dozen men, each making distinctive ‘chek, chek, chek’ sound that blend into a complex interlocking rhythmic pattern to assist the dancers in sustaining their trance condition.

This sacred dance, much developed, is the basis for Cak, a purely secular performance given almost exclusively for tourist. It is unthinkable for a Balinese to stage a Cak dance in his ceremony or for local consumption. The first simple version created in Bedulu achieved instant success and rapidly became very popular with tourist and other visitors to Bali. At heyday of Balinese tourism, several dozen professional groups perform regularly at the larger hotels and on special stages built for that purpose in their ward meeting halls.

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The first day of Classical Dance and Drama Performance (9/27/2007) was a kind of traveling back to the forgotten era of Balinese dance and drama performance. The performances which took place in Art Centre Denpasar, began at 7:30 PM, on an open stage, luckily no there was no rain pouring down.

The first performance that night was Leko dance from Jembrana regency. Leko is a type of social dance, may be a flirtation dance as a matter of fact, the ancestor of widely popular Joged Bumbung dance. In old days, Leko was a palace dance, designed for the entertainment of the king, nowadays it is a popular social dance that anybody can enjoy and participate. It is performed by a pairs of female dancers and usually involves the audience.

The Leko performance that night was surely an entertainment, a pair of beautiful dancers danced with the accompaniment of rindik (an ensemble in which the instruments are made of bamboo) orchestra.

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