At the Bali Arts Festival: On Two Types of Performance Art
Sunday, May 21st, 2006 by GawainOn July 3, 2005, I saw at Taman Budaya, in Denpasar, two complete Ramayana stories, back to back. One was danced by a Yogyakarta group, and the other one — right after the first one, in a miraculous double-header — by a Balinese group.
They were both very beautiful, each in its own way. And very different.
The Javanese version was slow, elegant, decorous, fluid and meditative; it is a true royal art, a ballet for the king’s court; the Balinese was mincing, nervous, frantic, full of crazy stops and starts, and — hilarious; a folk art: sophisticated but popular.
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