Amazon Balinese Dance Drama and Music a Guide to the Performing Arts of Bali Periplus Edition

"As the archetype of the frail and feminine, the legong is the finest of Balinese dances. Connoisseurs hash out the comparative excellence of various legongs equally intensely as we talk over our dancers, and I accept heard solemn arguments amidst princes as to wether the group of Bedulu was finer than that of Saba, or the schoolhouse of Sukawati superior to that of Badung"

Miguel Covarrubias. (1)

No uncertainty, legong is the well-nigh famous of all Balinese dances. Although non the nearly spectacular or dramatic, it is the almost beautiful and near prominent for the fineness of its movements and has become the representative image of Bali and its performing arts: the image of the little beautiful graceful dancer wearing a dramatic headdress, her body twisting and seemingly about to fall, while her gaze is turned sideways and her hands' fingers making movements impossible to imitate.

Balinese historians already place it as a recognizable mode since 1811. According to some mythical Balinese stories legong dance was built-in every bit a prototype of dance and music, that is, information technology was with information technology that these arts were created. (two)

When Covarrubias visited Bali in the 1930's, legong had already quite established itself as the first Balinese dance, and our Mexican explorer never failed to limited his wonder about what he saw in it; he explores, moreover, its origin, and also tells us that the structure and movements of legong may originate in shadow theater, the Wayang kulit, equally an attempt by humans to imitate the mode stories were told with puppets in shadows (3) . If this theory were true then Balinese trip the light fantastic toe would have the same origin than Chinese traditional theater or Chinese opera (iv) .

Covarrubias does a descriptive written report of the costume and headdress of legong dancers, plus a total plate of the basic positions of the choreography.

Illustraded notes about the costume and headdress of the legong dancer in Thousand. Covarrubias'south diary. (5)

Plate with illustrations of torso postures in legong dance. K. Covarrubias. (half dozen)

Some of the well-nigh beautiful paintings by Covarrubias were inspired on legong dance; the beauty of the effigy of the dancer was more than fascinating and he translated information technology into ink and watercolor (I tin can non say whether into oil as well).

"Legong Operation nether Bayan Tree" painting by Miguel Covarrubias.

"Legong Dancer" watercolour past Miguel Covarrubias.

"Kneeling Legong Dancer with Headdress" watercolour by Miguel Covarrubias.

And, of course, Miguel also left u.s. a filmed certificate of the dance itself in performance. The extract published here is part of an edition of early on 2000, narrated in English with texts extracted from Covarrubias's book Island of Bali:

Rose Covarrubias, wife of the Mexican creative person and a dancer herself, in turn devoted herself to photographically document the different types of legong trip the light fantastic and, cheers to her, nosotros have dozens of photographs on the subject during that period (1930-1932). Here I prove some which were published in Island of Bali. These photographs (and of course the film footage) are fantastic examples of how tradition keeps movements and postures almost intact during the years.

(Please, notice that you tin click on each photograph and encounter information technology in a larger size.)

Legong trip the light fantastic toe photos, by Rose Covarrubias.

Finally, I share what I saw at the performance at Ubud Royal Palace in July 2009, Legong Kraton (or Keraton). The photographs are very interesting, showing some of the concrete postures and diverse stills of eye and mitt movements; I think they portray the forcefulness of the projection of the dancers on phase. The video, however, is very short, I had problems with the camera and recorded simply a few moments, only it's worth watching.

(i) Isle of Bali. Miguel Covarrubias.

(ii) Balinese Dance, Drama and Music. A Guide to the Performing Arts of Bali. I Wayan Dibia and Rucina Ballinger.

(three) Island of Bali. Miguel Covarrubias. Page 228.

(4) See my post on Chinese funerary puppets and the origin of traditional Chinese theatre:

http://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/2010/02/budgeted-to-origin-of-chinese.html

(5) Covarrubias in Bali. Adriana Williams and Yu-Chee Chong. EDM, Singapore. Pages 130, 131.

(6) Island of Bali. Miguel Covarrubias. Analogy.

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Source: https://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/2010/05/legong-dance-documents-from-1930s-and.html

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