Saturday, January 31, 2009

a new dance production from Bali: "Sri Tanjung: The Scent of Innocence"

I receive posts from the Bali Art and Culture Network listserve, and at the risk of circulating the same information to the same people with the same interests, I pass along a recent post that caught my interest.

http://blog.baliwww.com/bali-news-events/2920/
reports on a new dance drama production retelling an old story about an innocent women killed by her jealous husband. She goes to the spirit realm and is returned to life, and a remorseful husband who then challenges her accuser, the king to a duel. Heady stuff! Wish I could see it.

According to the blog:
"The story of Sri Tanjung goes back to the 13th century in East java where we are still able to see the story engraved on various archaeological sights such as the Batur Pendopo of Candi Penataran in Blitar and Candi Surawana in Para, Kediri. In the 17th century, the story was written down in the Middle-Javanese language and came to be known as the Kidung Sri Tanjung. It was also once a popular repertoire for arja [Balinese dance-drama] and ritualistic wayang [I'm not sure if here they mean wayang dance or wayang kulit, the shadow puppet theater, which has a ritual form performed in temples as part of ceremonies] in Bali, but is now all but forgotten. Now, the story is brought back to life through a thorough creative process of research, narrative interpretation, script writing, music and vocal composition, and choreography. . . . Under the leadership of Kadek Suardana, artists of different generations from various disciplines of the performing arts have been brought together to try out their capacity in the exploration and hybridization of traditional idioms (dance, instrumental and vocal music, wider culture)."