Gambuh is the oldest continuously performed
dance-drama form in Bali. It is a surviving, ancient court form that belongs to
the bebali semi-sacred tradition. With a traceable history of at least four
hundred years it has roots in the Majapahit Empire. A grand and complex
performance, its gestures and music are firmly rooted in what is termed the
Balinese classical style. The style is elevated and regal, suggestive of its
court origins. Generally agreed to be the source of many later classical forms
such as Topeng and Legong, it is also still a key source and influence on
modern Balinese choreographers looking for a musical structure and design
springboard for their work. In this sense, it is the bridge between the
classical past and present within Balinese performance in general. It is as
much a source to Balinese performance genres as Shakespearian plays are to
English-speaking drama.
It can be argued that Shakespeare gave us much of the
language still current in English-language drama, and Gambuh gave to Balinese performance
a complete language of body movement. In Gambuh, it is movement, gesture and
structure that act as key sources. In each case, one dominating influence can
be traced through centuries of work and is still important today. In Balinese
thinking, innovation is usually a positive development but almost always that
same innovation will have clearly understood roots and connections. New forms
develop and evolve continually in Bali, but they grow out as branches, rather
than exist as completely separate species. Performance is organic and is viewed
as part of something greater, in a religious, but also performance, sense. The
linkage is through training, tradition, religious practice and shared
understandings of purpose; performance is intricately entwined with the past.
Gambuh is often described as the first ancestor of the
Balinese dancedrama and has been providing inspiration and various aesthetic
concepts and artistic methods that helped establish many succeeding genres. The
story, dance costumes, headdress, the theatrical way of featuring the essence
of dramatic characters rather than the individual character itself, and the
stylistic form of dance and speech diction of Gambuh are also employed in
descending genres such as Topeng masked theatre, Arja opera sung dance-drama,
Prembon comedic drama in a style similar in many ways to Commedia dell’arte,
and Sendratari narrated dance-drama, Calonarang mystical/magical theatre, and
many new dance creations. Topeng masked theatre also employs the dance costume
of Gambuh, from the headdress to the footwear. For example, by only adding the
masks to match the dramatic characters of another narrative source, Babad, the
Gambuh dancers in one village, Batuan, can perform Topeng dance-drama. An
individual dancer/ performer might begin a career with Gambuh and then move on
through the years to a series of other forms of performance that all relate in
one way or another directly to the original source form of Gambuh. In learning
each new form, the performer’s skills are added to and techniques expanded and
adapted. Without the mask, the narrative repertoire enacted in Gambuh
performance, the romance of the Panji Cycle, is also demonstrated in the later
form of Arja sung dance-drama, replacing the speech diction, mostly spoken in
Gambuh, into partly sung and partly spoken sequences. In Calonarang
dance-drama, many folk – and witch-like characters complement the Gambuh dance
style, costumes and characterisation to enact stories that feature black magic,
sickness and death. In effect, these scenes containing witches, corpses and an
array of folk characters mostly distinguish Calonarang from the Gambuh
dance-drama.
The most recently created form and the most
spectacular dance-drama, Sendratari, also employs and develops music
repertoires, dance style and characterisations from Gambuh. By modifying the
Gambuh costumes and choreography, changing the story, and assigning one person
to render all the vocal arts, speech diction and dialogue, Sendratari appears
as a distinctive genre, in which all dancers are only miming the acting and
dance movement, without delivering any dialogue or narration. It is significant
that contemporary Balinese choreographers working on new compositions still
often turn to Gambuh as a major source for their work. Many of the artistic
elements of Gambuh, especially its highly stylistic acting and dance style, are
still prevalent and pervasive in various recent dance compositions, including
the popular tourist Barong and Rangda dance-drama.
The vocabularies of movements from Gambuh, that can be
seen in many succeeding genres previously mentioned, includes the movements of
eyes, head, neck, hands, fingers and feet. The dramatic and aesthetic concepts
of these movements are still well maintained in the other genres. The sharp
flicking of eyes points to the direction, object or person of focus, staring
eyes indicates curiosity, glancing eyes suggests madness, various mudra
(gestures derived from classical Indian dance terminology) hand gestures and
finger positions indicate the type of character and the motive for action;
various foot movements of twisting, lifting, stepping sideways and back and
forth and sudden jumps/strides for cueing the musicians are all derived from
Gambuh. Some dance patterns/cadences composed by combining two to five
different movements in Gambuh can very frequently be identified in the
descending genres. Those patterns include, among many others, ulap-ulap (eyeing
pattern), which suggests investigation of an object or person and are repeated
often throughout the performance; touching and raising a robe indicates
readiness to leave; the circular and evasive kissing pattern signifies a love
scene; the middle finger moving towards the headdress (as it seems to the
outside observer) suggests touching of the third eye. Specific positions vary
according to the gender of the performer; for example, a male kneels with only
one knee resting on the ground whereas a female kneels with both knees touching
the ground. In addition, tangkep (facial expression) and the standard coded
body postures in almost all forms of performance are also derived from Gambuh
dance-drama. These coded body positions are also known as agem, basic position;
left or right (rarely middle) position is indicated by where the body’s weight
is directed. The unified balance is not established by the symmetrical lines or
middle and equal positions, but by composing the imbalance and balance,
complementing the strong limb with the soft limb, and combining the straight
lines and tilted lines or equilibrium and asymmetry. Thus, dynamic balance is
more prevalent and preferred than stable balance. This concept of dynamic
balance is central to understanding
Balinese performance in general. Like the swastika,
the movement is circular and continual, like a wheel turning, as one-sided
balance is corrected by a movement to the opposite side and so on for eternity.
For example, in the right position, the body weight is allotted to the right
foot that makes it strong, while the left is soft and relaxed. When the entire
body belongs in effect to the back right corner, the facial focus must be
directed towards the front left corner. The left ear is now higher than the
right one, because of the rightward slanted body, so the right elbow must be brought
up, equal to the height of the left ear. Since this right position makes the
right elbow and foot strong, the softer and more relaxed left hand and foot
must do or initiate the elaborating movements, whether twisting, lifting,
jumping, jerking or walking. All applies equally in reverse when the weight is
on the other side. Balinese performance gives the impression of continual
movement in the hands, eyes, feet, head or torso. This makes it significantly
different from some other classical dance forms, also derived from Indian
classical dance, in South East Asia. The Thai, male, masked dance known as
Khon, for example, appears slower, stiller and more grounded; in that form,
points of balance are often found and momentarily held. To begin the standard coded
body postures derived from Gambuh, the abdominal area is held in until the
chest is pulled up and the torso slightly arches back. In a typical standing
position, thighs and feet turn out from as little as 45 degrees for female
characters to as wide as 170 degrees for male characters. The knees bend down
unsymmetrically so that only one foot fully supports the body weight, which is
slightly tilted to either right or left. The toes flex upward, especially those
of the foot that stays in front of theother or lifts up from the floor. Derived
from Gambuh, female characters have a narrower stance and make a shorter
stride, moving more slowly, gently and subtly than the male characters, who
have a wider stance and a longer stride with strong accentuated and less
flowing gestures. Interestingly, though, dancers of either gender can learn to
play male or female roles. Often male teachers instruct female characters in
many Balinese dance and dance-drama forms.
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