|
WORLD MUSIC REVIEW
Restoring The Layers Of Balinese Art
February 16, 2001
|
By Henry Spiller
There is a double-bind associated with presenting non-Western music and dance in Western venues: The lure of mystery and exoticism is contrary to the loftier goal of cross-cultural understanding. Gamelan Sekar Jaya's ambitious production of Kawit Legong: Prince Karna's Dream, presented by Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall on Friday, met the challenge, artfully weaving cultural context into the spectacle itself in a way that American audiences can readily comprehend.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya is excellently equipped to do this with its cadre of Bali's finest creative minds, including I Ketut Kodi, Ni Ketut Arini, I Wayan Dibia, I Nyoman Windha, I Made Subanda, and I Dewa Putu Berata. They, along with their American collaborators, Larry Reed, Wayne Vitale, and Richard Wallis, have years of experience mediating Balinese and American worldviews. Most importantly, Sekar Jaya's 20-year track record of excellent performances leads Bay Area audiences to be receptive to anything they might do.
Legong is one of Bali's emblematic dance genres and is a "must see" for tourists. Guides always mention the ritual significance of legong, but its deeper meaning is hopelessly obscured in layers of Balinese cosmology and spirituality. Kawit Legong effectively restores some of these layers by embedding them in a multimedia theatrical production. Ironically, the piece imparts this understanding of the larger significance of Balinese arts by presenting it in an inherently un-Balinese way — on a proscenium stage, replete with Western theatrical gestures.
The piece dramatizes the legendary creation of a legong dance by a 19th century aristocrat, Prince Karna, who sees the dance in a vision, recreates it with living dancers, and learns that it has healing power. I Ketut Kodi, the puppeteer and dancer responsible for the piece's conception, also brought his artistic skills to the role of Prince Karna. Karna has just learned of the death of his father, the king. The king's cremation procession was the first of many breathtaking scenes showcasing Larry Reed's ShadowLight Productions. Shadows of the cremation tower loomed across the screen, and the king's spirit drifts away amid the flame and smoke of the funeral pyre. The shadow-play funeral soon spilled onto the stage as a group of dancers. By juxtaposing the ephemeral shadows and the living dancers, this scene suggests a seamless divide between the Balinese spiritual and physical worlds. The shadow backdrop changed to suggest a temple interior, where Karna meditates. Two bidadari (forces of nature), ably danced by Kompiang Metri Davies and Ida Ayu Diastini, try to break his concentration. Once again we saw the interaction of the spiritual and physical realms as the bidadari manipulate Prince Karna's arms in an attempt to capture his attention. Karna then witnesses his vision: two carvings on the wall begin to dance. This scene was another triumph for ShadowLight Productions. The two static shadow puppets dissolved into the shadows of two legong dancers and then back again. Prince Karna associates his vision with two heirloom masks on the temple altar.
To help him translate his vision into reality, Karna engages the dance teacher (charmingly played by Ni Ketut Arini, who choreographed the piece and designed the stunning costumes with the assistance of Kompiang Metri Davies). The dance teacher chooses two young students to learn the dance. However, exuding an irresistible innocence and charm, these young dancers, Luh Putu Adnyani Utami and Ida Ayu Cahya Sugiantari, are utterly transformed in the next scene, as they perform the new legong dance for a ceremony. As they don the masks, they are possessed — again, we saw the confluence of the spiritual and material realms. Attention shifts to the dark side of the unseen Balinese universe. The witch Rangda, danced by I Wayan Dibia (well known to California audiences from his long residency here), and four disciples stir up trouble, accompanied by monstrous images on the shadow screen. Karna tries to vanquish Rangda, but a voice from above tells him that the legong dance is more effective against supernatural enemies than against weapons. The piece ends with the young legong dancers' performance restoring balance to the universe. The audience may not have had the benefit of years of experience with Balinese cosmology, but director Ellen Sebastian Chang's artful manipulation of Western theatrical gestures, combined with Balinese conventions, led us to make sense of the legong's ritual significance. By the end, the Balinese notion that the arts can literally save the world became credible. I Made Moja's shadow designs and Alexander Nichols's lighting design also contributed to the production's impact.
I Nyoman Windha's score runs the Balinese musical gamut, from gentle unaccompanied voice, through the mellow strains of gamelan angklung, to the thunderous power of a full gamelan gong. The large ensemble of musicians, directed by Windha, I Made Subanda, and I Dewa Putu Berata, executed the score with admirable precision. Unfortunately, the musicians and actors were overamplified, resulting in an excessively tinny gamelan sound and excruciatingly loud voices. The attraction of the exotic all too often becomes the main draw of non-Western music and dance presentations. Gamelan Sekar Jaya's Kawit Legong: Prince Karna's Dream succeeds in demystifying rather than exoticizing its powerful message. (Henry Spiller is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at UC Berkeley and teaches music at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.) ©2001 Henry Spiller, all rights reserved |
