Balinese dance at Ethnic Dance Festival

I thought I would share some of what I have been able to find out about the performance by Gadung Kasturi on June 28-29 at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. The group will perform Tari Topeng Telek. Topeng means "to press against the face" and is often translated as "mask" in English. Telek are the white-faced temple guardians who must battle the usually red-faced, destructive Jauk characters in an ongoing balancing of good and evil. Their battle precedes a confrontation between Barong, the protector and Rangda, the demonic destroyer (remember Rangda from my first post?) This work is traditional, and has been arranged by the group's artistic director Kompiang Metri-Davies. The Contra Costa Times interviewed Metri-Davies this week; she commented: "('Tari Topeng Telek') symbolizes that there's always a fight between good and bad." Neither side ever really wins, but balance must be maintained through regular sacred offerings including dance performances.

The origin of this work and other classic Balinese dances are impossible to pin-point as made unsettlingly clear in Mark Hobart's article, "Rethinking Balinese Dance" in Indonesia and the Malay World, 35:101, (London: Routledge, June 2007) pp. 107 - 128. [This interesting article is unfortunately not online, but may be available through your public library's JSTOR online journal search]. He writes, "Retrojection, anachronism, partisan claims, plain invention and simple muddle are the hallmarks of the written history of Balinese dance."

Where does that leave us? Well for the present, we leave our questions about history aside, we go and observe the product of countless hours of study and practice on stage at the festival by this stellar cast of artists including guest master musician I Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana. According to the program notes:

The music is also traditional and it is completely united with the dance. Changes in its dynamics, accent, and musical structure are tightly synchronized to the dancers' hand, foot, and eye gestures, as both dancers and musicians give and follow cues.

Apparently you can see either the Telek or Jauk dance without their opponent, but according to Sidarta Wijaya, "I have never encountered a solo Telek; Telek can be categorized as a rare piece of Balinese dance." In other words, you might see solo Jauk performances, but Telek are usually danced as a group. Images of a Telek and Jauk performances in Bali can be seen on YouTube, such as in this clip:



As well as on the following websites:
http://blog.baliwww.com/dance-drama-music/227/
http://blog.baliwww.com/arts-culture/1289/
http://blogbali.com/jauk-and-telek-dance/

Following is a vivid description of a Jauk performance:

The harsh stare of the eyes, the thick, black mustache, and frozen smile give the masked Jauk dancer an uncanny effect of being from another world. . . . He wears a high, tasseled crown covering a thick mass of tangled hair, and gloves with long transparent fingernails that flitter incessantly to the music. As a mask dance, Jauk is considered a high art to execute well. The dancer's aim is to express . . . a strong, forceful personality. . . . [because they are wearing a mask] a Jauk performer cannot rely on powerful facial expressions to convey feeling.

He can dart his artificial looks here and there, but he is obliged to express his demonic exuberance through his gestures alone. (The round, protruding eyes and tentacle-like fingernails are the marks of identification for a demon.) . . . . He peers out to his audience like a crouching cat ready to leap upon its prey.

Suddenly he lunges, the music becomes frenetic with loud, clashing sounds, he spins to reach the perimeter of the stage, then stops, precise and controlled--only the constant shimmering of the tassels and fingernails mirror his intensity. Slowly, he retreats, as if preoccupied by dark, treacherous thoughts. And if his audience in the first rows are little children, they breathe a sigh of relief.

--excerpted from http://www.balinesia.com/bali/bali_art_n_dance/jauk-dance/index.html

What a rare treat indeed to see traditional Balinese dance with live musical accompaniment in San Francisco, not so rare in Bali of course. I will be watching intently for the cues back and forth between dancer and musician, and trying to imagine how it feels to don such a mask.