Balinese Traditional Entertaintment

In Bali no temple festival or ceremony is complete without entertainment for the gods, attending guests and local people. Temple anniversaries are occasions for all night dramatic and dance performances, with different type’s entertainment on each consecutive night, sometimes lasting until morning.

The basic accompaniment to any such performance is provided by the local gamelan orchestra, a group of brass instruments, metal phones, tuned gongs, cymbals and hand drums, the village generally owns the instruments, as they are extremely expensive and they are stored at the village Banjar meeting hall and taken great pride in.

No Balinese music has been written down or recorded until recent years. It has been passed down from generation to generation purely by memory. Each particular dance and dramatic performance has its own special combination of instruments to suit, melodious bamboo flutes, reedy two-stringed rebab violins and twanging Jew's harp like gengong are all used to provide their own special effects.

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Welcome Dance PANYEMBRAMA

One of the most reasons why people love Bali is because of the hospitality. Balinese always welcome you to enjoy their beautiful island with the unique culture and tradition.

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Panyembrama is Balinese welcome dance. The dance was performed for the first time at the Pandaan Festival in 1971, and now Panyembrama Dance is not only performed on the commercial stage, but is also performed as the opening dance of religious ceremonies in temples.

After spending many years learning Balinese dance and traditional instruments, I Wayan Berata made a composition for a new dance called Panyembrama, 1963. The name of the dance comes from the Balinese word for welcome.

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Barong and Kriss Dance Gallery Photo

The Barong dance is truly a triumphant display of bright colors and graceful movements.
Inspired by an episode taken from Mahabharata, an epic poem written in Sanskrit. The dance evolves around the character of the Barong, the king of the jungle. A mythical animal, he is the symbol of virtue and good, subject to the continuous struggle against the evil forces - Rangda, that threaten life and the integrity of the forest, this being an element very dear to the Balinese population.

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Barong and Kriss Dance

A straight forward battle between good and bad : The Barong dance is the classic story of good (the Barong) triumphing over evil (the witch Rangda).

The villages of Batubulan as well as Tegaltamu and Singapadu, small towns located 30 minutes from Denpasar, are known for putting on the best performances. There is, however, more to the Barong dance than the folkloristic dimension. It is, in fact, an integral part of the island's culture and has an evident sacred connotation. It isn't rare, in fact, to see the Balinese dancing the Barong during their religious ceremonies, regardless of the presence of tourists.

The Barong dance is truly a triumphant display of bright colors and graceful movements.
Inspired by an episode taken from Mahabharata, an epic poem written in Sanskrit. The dance evolves around the character of the Barong, the king of the jungle. A mythical animal, he is the symbol of virtue and good, subject to the continuous struggle against the evil forces that threaten life and the integrity of the forest, this being an element very dear to the Balinese population.

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The FROG Dance

About Reincarnation

A beautiful lady wearing an exquisite costume and sparkling jewelry sways gracefully, while a man wearing a frog mask dances as if he is a frog. What is the message here? Will the lady kiss the frog and transform him into a handsome prince?

Well, the frog indeed turns into a handsome prince, but the story is not about a curse. It is about the love of a mother, the love between man and woman, and most of all it is about reincarnation.

Reincarnation has a very close relationship with karma. How and in what form you are reborn to the world depends on your karma, as a result of your actions and attitude in your previous life.

So the Frog Dance is a fairytale about a couple who have no children.

"... One day, the wife goes to the forest to collect some firewood. After walking for several hours she feels thirsty, and takes a coconut shell to fill it with water to drink. Returning to the village she encounters a big frog on the way and she suddenly falls pregnant.

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