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Kecak Dance

A beautiful of Bali is a creation of art, cultures, landscape, people and the religion. Balinese people understand how to absorb the soul of Bali. Enjoy all of the Balinese aspects such as their tradition and dance. There are several of dance in Bali: dance for ritual and dance for entertainment. If you go to Bali you can see all of them, but dance for entertainment is very easy to enjoy, so ask your tour guide or the information desk in your beautiful hotel.

Don’t forget to attend Kecak dance performances. Kecak (pronounced: /'ke.tʃak/, roughly "KEH-chahk", alternate spellings: Ketjak, Ketjack, and Ketiak), a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and is performed primarily by men. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting "cak" and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where the monkey-like Vanara or Hanoman helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. However, Kecak has roots in Sanghyang Jaran, a trance-inducing exorcism dance. You will enjoy a lot of actions, funny performances, and beautiful voices of Kecak dancer. There is no music instrument or Balinese gamelan in Kecak dance. Remember that all dancers and other actors and actress are using their own voice (vocal only) to make a sound and sing. It’s really beautiful performances.

Kecak was originally a trance ritual accompanied by male chorus. German painter and musician Walter Spies became deeply interested in the ritual while living in Bali in the 1930s and worked to recreate it into a drama, based on the Hindu Ramayana and including dance, intended to be presented to Western tourist audiences. This transformation is an example of what James Clifford describes as part of the "modern art-culture system" in which, "the West or the central power adopts, transforms, and consumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements, while 'art' which was once embedded in the culture as a while, into a separate entity." Spies worked with Wayan Limbak and Limbak popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels have helped to make the Kecak famous throughout the world. Bali is most open minded people, so they are easy to adopt other arts and cultures influences as long as comply with the Balinese tradition.