Bali Tourist Information

Mini Encyclopedia

Great Holiday

Galungan Day
The most important holiday in Bali, symbolizing the victory of Virtue (Dharma) upon Evil (Adharma). The holiday is specialized by the fitting of 'penjor', a tall bamboo pole splendidly decorated with woven young coconut leaves, fruit, cakes and flowers, on the right side of every house entrance. People are attired in their finest clothes and jewels this day.

Kuningan Day
This holiday take place ten days after Galungan bringing the holiday period to a closing time. On this day, special ritual ceremony held for the Ancestral spirits.

Nyepi Day
This holiday is Balinese New Year called Icaka New Year, the day of total silence throughout the island. NO activity is done, no traffic at all on the roads, no fire may be lit and no amusement held for the day long. Great purification and sacrificial rites were held the day before so as to exorcise evil spirits from corner of the compound.

Dance & Drama

Baris
This is warrior's dance. It is usually performed by man, either solo or in a group of five or more. The dancers try to portray the full range of emotions displayed by a warrior-anger, courage, ferocity and passion. This dance requires great skill, whit the artist having to display the whole range the inner emotions, mainly trough facial expression.

Barong & Rangda
This is basically a story about the struggle between good and evil. Good is personified by the barong Keket, a strange, fun-loving creature in the shape of the shaggy semi-lion. Evil is represented by Rangda, a witch. Ultimately, the two character engage in battle, at witch point the Barong's Keris-bearing follower's rush in to attack Rangda. The witch, however, uses her magical powers to turn the keris knives in upon their owners, who fall in to a trance and start trying to stab themselves.The Barong uses magic to protect hid followers from the knives. in the end, the Barong triumphs and Rangda retreats to recuperate he strength for the next encounter. All that remains is for a priest to help the Keris dancers out of their trance, with the help of a little holy water. The Barong and Rangda dance is a very powerful performance and is not taken lightly by those involved.

Kecak
The most famous of the Balinese dances, the Kecak, originated from the Sanghyang dance choirs, who cant a distinctive 'kechak-kechak' accompaniment. The Kecak, as a dance, developed in the 1930's, in the village of Bona, where it is still performed regularly. The theme is taken the from the Ramayana and tells the story of Rama, who with the help of the monkey army, tries to rescue his wife from the clutches of the evil King Rawana. This a very exciting dance to watch, and is performed by large group of chanting men sitting in a circle, waving their arms and swaying to and fro, in time with the chants.

Legong
This dance tells the story of Princess Rangkesari who is held captive against her will by a King Lakesmi. Rangkesari's brother, Price Daha, gathers an army together to rescue his sister. Princess Rangkesari then tries to persuade Laksmi to let he to go avoid a war, but he denies he freedom. On his a way to battle, Daha is attacked by a raven, a bad omen, and is latter killed in battle. The dance only takes the story up to the point where the king departs the battle, and it is performed by three people, two Legongs and their attendant, the 'Condong'. The legong is a very classical and graceful dance, and is always performed by pubescent girls, often as young as eight or nine years old.

Sanghyang Trance Dances
The Sanghyang is a divine force that enters the bodies of the entranced dancers. There are a number of Sanghyang dances, but the most common are the Sanghyang Dedari and the Sanghyang Jaran. The Sanghyang Dedari is performed by two girls, and is very similar in style to the Legong; the main different it that the Sanghyang Dedari girls are supposedly un trained and can keep in perfect time with each other, even though their eyes are firmly shut. The accompanying music is provided by a female choir and a male Kecak choir. In the Sanghyang Jaran, a boy dances around and through a fire, riding a coconut palm hobbyhorse. This frequently called the "Fire Dance', for the sake of tourists. In both dances, a priest is always on hand to help bring the dancers out their trance-state at the end of the performance.

Topeng (Mask) Dances
In Bali, mask are considered sacred objects and are revered as such. The best ones are traditionally carved on auspicious days and the dancers who wear them are believed to be possessed by the spirits of the masks. Characters can be identified from the shape of try features; noble characters always wear full, refined masks,; while evil is represented by bulging eyes and garish colors. The character are silent, but communicate using complex gestures of the hand, head and body. The story lines usually follow the popular myths, or episodes from history.

Wayang Kulit
Wayang Kulit is one of the great story-telling traditions of the Javanese and Balinese. The Wayang shows normally consist of a small4-piece orchestra, which provides the musical accompaniment, around 60 'puppets' carved out of flat pieces of water buffalo hide and the Dalang, or puppet- master. The Dalang has to be both incredibly skilled, as well as knowledgeable. He not only manipulates all the puppets, but has to provide a different 'voice' for each one. good characters normally speaking in ancient 'Kawi' and evil or coarse characters speaking in Balinese. The Dalang, therefore, has to be fluent in both languages. Traditonal dramas cover a wide variety of themes. The most popular are stories taken from the Hindu epic, the Mahabarata.

Others

Subak
Subak is the organization of farmers of a rice field area that receives its water from one source. Irrigating those rice field in Bali is very complicated work, yet it is very efficiently done by the Subak. There are thousands of Subaks in Bali. One big dam can be shared by many Subak and the number of Subak depends how large the water supply is. The Subak regulates the rice planting and the distribution of water needed by the rice field.

Dadia
Dadia consists of Balinese families who believe that they come from one common ancestry. Many "dadia" form clans. In Bali there are many clans, such as Pasek, Pande, Penyarikan, Arya Kenceng, Satriya Dalem, etc.

Karma Pala
This Hindu teachings of Karma Pala are very closely related to reincarnation. What life one leads today is the fruit of one's previous life (Purwa Karma) and what one will be in one's next life is decided in one's present life. In this life one does good deeds and one does bad one. The balance of these good deeds and bad ones decides whether one goes to Hell or to Heaven, if one does more good than bad one goes to Heaven and if one does more bad than good one goes to Hell. If one reincarnates from Heaven one becomes a better human being, but if one is reborn from Hell one becomes a worse human being. If the balance is so bad one is reborn not as a human being but as an animal or even a lower being.