As all dancers for this particular performance are
faculty members of ISI Denpasar, many of the partial rehearsals take place
around the room or in the front office of appropriate faculty members who are
also the main performers. They are mostly accompanied by tape-recorded music or
they create music vocally, imitating the corresponding musical piece. The
partial rehearsal concentrates on the section that requires a group dance or at
least more than one dancer. If an individual dancer practises independently,
that dancer typically rehearses to perfect technique and certain movements or
song or speech diction. No instructor is needed as they are all instructors
themselves,
both in their village and at the Institute. In a village rehearsal,
there would usually be an outside eye, such as a fellow dancer, at such
rehearsals. About 20 minutes’ drive north-east of the capital city Denpasar,
the Gambuh performance was held in the temple of Gegaduhan Jagat in conjunction
with the Ngusaba celebration. This is a major festival that takes place in each
village about every ten years; if the village does not yet have enough
resources, the festival might be postponed for several more years. It is a
purification ceremony designed to achieve balance between human and other
humans, humans and gods and between humans and the environment. The festival
must run a minimum of 11 days. Throughout this period, rituals and performances
of various forms always occur. Certain performances are required, and Gambuh,
for example, must be presented at least twice. There are also performances of
Topeng and Wayang. The local villagers set the plan for celebrating the
festival and collected the funds to pay for the performances one year ahead.
Many villages do not have their own specialist Gambuh troupe and must hire one
– in this case from ISI Denpasar. Preparing the ceremony has taken about three
weeks. Early in the morning of the ceremonial day, villagers begin the
preparations according to their own village role. A certain number of people
are assigned to escort three holy priests while others are assigned to welcome
a number of artist–performers from surrounding areas. The rest of the villagers
are in charge of a number of ceremonial preparations in the temple, such as
making or distributing offerings, playing gamelan music, dancing, singing
ritual songs, assisting priests, making and distributing foods and drinks and
staging cockfights.
All the dancers in this case are faculty members; most
of the musicians, too, are faculty, supported by a smaller number of students.
At about 7 a.m., this group leaves from the Institute and travels together to
the performance site. The gamelan musicians are taken directly to the
ceremonial performance site at the temple known as Gegaduhan Jagat, while all
dancers are led to a family house across from the temple where they are served
drinks and several types of Balinese cakes. The dancers begin to dress into
special costumes, which takes a little over an hour. During this process, the
sacred headdresses of the Gambuh dancers are consecrated and the Pamangku (the
local priest) sprinkles the dancers with holy water.
A similar ceremony is observed for the Topeng masks
and headdresses. In Balinese culture, the head is considered holy and the
closest point of the body to the gods. The welcome food and drinks are served
later to the musicians after the orchestra has been set up. This communal
welcoming is an important part of the preparation processes at work in the
festival, and it ensures integration of the visitors into the community. The
ceremonial aspects of blessing the masks and headdresses are also part of the
performance preparation for all the participants. Western actors will similarly
prepare, also partly through the costume, while gazing into the mirror and
feeling the sense of the new character establishing itself. In a way, this
takes the actors outside of themselves and allows a mild form of possession to
take place; in the Western context, this is, of course, mainly or entirely a
conscious process. At the same time, when about to perform a complex, demanding
role actors may, in true Stanislavskian fashion, begin emotional preparation
using deliberate psychological processes. However, in the Balinese system the
performers prepare spiritually as a group, bonded together and reminded of the
spiritual function of their performance. In the case of the more holy
performance forms, sometimes involving states of trance, the dressing/blessing
procedures take on an even more crucial function of preparation. About an hour
later, the ceremony itself begins. Several full and semiformalised theatrical
forms occur simultaneously, with the performance of various ritual and communal
theatre rites. The villagers present themselves in temple dress to participate
in various parts of the ceremony. Men and boys dress with a symbolic masculine
knot (kancut) on the front of their wrap-round cloth (kamen) and wear a
headdress that is usually white. Women and girls put on a tightly wrapped cloth
(also known as kamen) and decorate their braided hair with flowers; most
females these days wear false hair or wigs to represent the traditional long,
braided hair, which is regarded as a symbol of beauty. Most women, especially
teenagers, use light facial make-up and scents, unlike the strong perfumes and
make-up employed by the dancers.
Three Pedanda priests (representing the three holy
realms) lead the overall ceremony, cited on the main, tallest, raised pavilion.
These priests, invited from adjacent areas, consist of a Siwa from Padang Tegal
village, a Buddhist from the village of Batuan Padang Aji and a Bujangga Rsi
from Kesiman village. Before each performance area (kalangan) can be used, they
are all consecrated to appease the Butha (lower spirits) before their earth can
be stepped on. On the upper stage of the largest hall, the Gong Kebyar music
ensemble of about 35 musicians begins with an overture. Soon after, it
accompanies the Rejang dance of 30 girls and the Baris dance that uses 30 boys.
After each group has performed about 15 minutes respectively, the dancers join
a procession, first circling the perimeter of the main ceremonial tower of
offering three times, which is assembled at the front of the priests’ pavilion.
Next, on the perimeter, below a smaller offering tower, a Topeng performer with
a basket of masks is waiting to begin. The same music ensemble finally
accompanies his Topeng Pajegan show – a solo-performance masked theatre. This
masked show, enacting the local chronicle, is staged in front of the female
chorus, which is singing praises to the gods. In the left corner of the same
hall, the ritual Wayang Lemah puppet performance is in progress. Various ritual
processions proceed simultaneously with all these performance arts. As always,
colourful and elaborate forms of offering are placed, offered or dedicated in
every part of the ceremonial site.
The female chorus recite the kidung song with lyrics
glorifying higher spiritual powers, similar to those performed in a Western
church Sunday service. A smaller group of people are assembled around a ritual
dramatic reading (kakawin) in which one person reads and at the same time sings
the lyric of a dramatic poem, which is derived either from local, Javanese and
mostly Indian epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. In front of the female
chorus, the Topeng Pajegan masked one-man show enacts a story drawn from the
local chronicle babad, accompanied by the Gong Kebyar music orchestra.
The dancer shifts from one character to the other by
changing his mask, headdress, speech diction, rhetoric and vocabulary of
movements. The audience generally admires the technique rather than being drawn
much into the narrative as this is already well known to them. At the front
right side of the priest’s pavilion and away from the largest hall, about 30
musicians from the Institute begin to play the Semar Pagulingan, a musical
ensemble with an overture. While the Gong Kebyar features the Pelog scale, the
Semar Pagulingan features the Slendro scale. After playing the overture, the
ensemble plays to accompany the Gambuh dance-drama until the end of the show.
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