Dynamic Togetherness in The 34th Bali Arts Festival

The fabled island of Bali will this year again roll out the annual Bali Arts Festival to be held from 9 June to 7 July 2012, at Denpasar, capital of Bali. For one full month, the best of Bali’s dances, music, and artistic expressions will be on display as this tourist paradise showcases its best cultural presentations. There are daily performances of dance and music alongside countless related cultural and commercial activities during which literally the whole of Bali comes to the city to present its offerings of dance, music and beauty.

 

Trance dances, classical court dances, stars of Balinese cultural stage, odd village dances, food and offerings contests, and modern innovations on classical dances, flower arrangements, fashion shows, films, and more are on the month-long agenda. Cultural performances from other Indonesian provinces including Central Kalimantan, North Sumatra, East Java, Riau, Jakarta, Solo and many others will also be presented, bringing their own traditional as well as most contemporary choreographs.  

In Bali, for months now competitions have been held in villages to select their best cultural groups to vie for a slot in the Arts Festival to perform in front of large international crowds who have thronged to the island.

For its 34^th Bali Arts festival, organizers have chosen as theme of the Festival : “Paras-Paros”, Dynamic Togetherness. The event itself will be highlighted with fascinating features among which are dance dramas (Sendratari), Bali Modern theater, Gong Kebyar maestro, photography Workshops, culinary festivals, and musical performances. There will also be exciting competitions such as documentary movie competitions, handicraft competitions, literary writing, painting, photography competitions. Parades and processions will also be presented including the Parade of Flowers and coconut leaves arrangements, a culinary and fashion Parade, Nglawang Parade, Dramatari Arja Parade, Gong Kebyar Parade, Semara Pagulingan Parade, Joged Bumbung Parade, and many others.  

Each year, at the Bali Arts Festival  are featured classical dances of the island, such as the legong, gambuh, kecak, barong, baris, mask dances and the like, on which contemporary dance choreographs have been created and old village dances and activities revived. Over the years, the whole range of classical Balinese folk stories – such as the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Sutasoma, Panji - have thus been turned into "colossal Dance dramas” known as Sendratari.

While major performances are held at the amphitheater which can hold up to 6,000 spectators in a temple-like stage, others are held at locations across the city and surrounding areas. Since most of the art and cultural activities in Bali are motivated by religious devotion, artists will attempt to create their best works.

Through its 34 years history, the Bali Arts Festival has been a media to rediscover and preserve the unique and celebrated arts and culture of Bali, at the same time increase its people’s welfare. Through this special annual event, it is hoped that the true authentic wisdom and philosophy of the people of Bali will not only be preserved but will also grow and spread to other parts of the world.

The History of the Bali Arts Festival

When tourism took off after 1965, the Balinese insisted that it followed cultural guidelines: if tourism was to be accepted, it was to be a cultural tourism, or "pariwisata budaya".

As the Balinese statement: "Tourism should be for Bali instead of Bali for tourism." In time, this idea becomes national policy, as part of a larger reaping of regional cultures for national purposes. The policy owes much to the former Director General of Culture (1968-1978) and Governor of Bali (1978-1988), Ida Bagus Mantra, an Indian-educed Balinese. It led, on the one side, to the creation of enclave resorts such as Nusa Dua to limit the direct impact of tourism, and on the other, to a long haul cultural policy aimed at nurturing and preserving the traditional agrarian culture while adapting it to the demands of modernity, and in particular of "cultural tourism".

At the village level, local music groups, dances and other cultural events were inventoried, and then supported by a series of contests at the district and regency level. The ensuing competition energized the cultural life of villages, whose "young blood" was already being drained to the city by the process of economic change and urbanization.

Schools of dance and art were created, in particular the Kokar conservatory and the STSI School of Dance and Music. Beside research, these schools replaced the traditional master/disciple relationship by modern methods of teaching; standardized the dance movements, produced new types of Balinese dances for tourism and modern village entertainment. Most important, it enabled former students to return to the villages as teachers, where they diffused, beside the creed of cultural resilience and renewal, new dances and standardized versions of old ones.

Many of the performances are held at the amphitheater which can hold up to 6,000 spectators, in a temple-like stage. Each year, the Bali Arts Festival, beside the fed classical dances of the island, such as the legong, gambuh, kecak, barong, baris, mask dances and the like, is based on the theme around which new "dance choreography" is produced and old village dances and activities revived. Over the years, the whole range of classical Balinese stories - Ramayana, Mahabharata, Sutasoma, Panji - have thus been turned into "colossal" Sendratari Ballets.

The main challenge to the Arts Festival is obviously economic in nature. As village life is increasingly feeling the strains of monetary considerations, dancers, musicians and others cannot be expected to continue participating simply for the sake and the pleasure of it. As costs soar, new sources of financing have to be found. The obvious answer is the private sector and in particular the tourism industry. The greater task then is to convince the hotels, travel agencies and tourist guides to be more participatory in the Arts Festival rather than to their own sponsored events.

Considering the pride the Balinese have in their culture, and the adaptability and dynamism they have always demonstrated, this little hurdle can be overcome. Trust the Balinese. They will eventually succeed to transform their tradition into a modern, Balinese culture of their own.

Well guys, the Bali Arts Festival is a full month of daily performances, handicraft exhibitions and other related cultural and commercial activities during which literally the whole of Bali comes to the city to present its offerings of dance, music and beauty. It is a month long revelry that perhaps no other place in the world can put up on such a low budget as the Balinese. Not only their traditional culture is alive and well, but they have a tremendous pride also in it.

It begins in the villages, where the sekaa or cultural groups are selected and organized at the regency level, vie with each other to perform the Arts Festival and thus display in front of a large audience the uniqueness of their village of birth and resting place of their ancestors.

The Bali Arts Festival is the Denpasar cultural event of the year; perhaps it would not be too farfetched to suggest that it is the cultural event of Indonesia. The festival is thus a unique opportunity to see local village culture both "live" and at first hand. Tourists are warmly welcomed.