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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Most of Museum Bali’s collections are ethnographical objects of Bali consisting of equipments and tools of religious ceremonies, sacred dances, parts of a sacred building such as temple, etc, similar to those which are still having sacred functions in the present society. In order to appreciate the sense of their sacredness, and to observe the local norms as well, that collections in Museum Bali are generally displayed following the existing concept of Trimandala, the three divisions of an area, i.e. utama mandala, the primary or the holiest part of the area, referring to the mountain direction (kaja), madya mandala, middle area (tengah), and nista mandala, the profane area (kelod) the ocean direction. This concept in Balinese society life is applied to the palemahan desa, a village layout, as well as to the palemahan pawongan, layout of a house compound. Besides horizontally, the concept also applies vertically.

Specially for the exhibition in Denpasar Building where we exhibit collections which do not have any sacred characteristics, besides the. concept of Trimandala we also use periodisation in displaying the collections.

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