Kecak Dance

Hi, now I’ll introduce you about Kecak Dance. You know Kecak dance ? If you don’t, you can see it here.

Kecak (pronunciation: / ‘ke.tʃak /, roughly “Keh-chahk”, alternate spelling: Ketjak, Ketjack, and armpits), is a typical Balinese performing arts that was created in the arround 1930′s and played mainly by men. This dance is performed by many (tens or more) male dancers who sat lined up in a circle and with a certain rhythm called “cak” and raised both arms, depicts the story of Ramayana when Rama’s line of apes help fight Ravana. However, Kecak comes from the ritual sanghyang , namely the tradition of dancing the dancers will be in a condition not realized, to communicate with God or the spirits of the ancestors and then convey its expectations to the public. The dancers in the circle is wearing a plaid cloth like a chessboard their waist. Besides the dancers, there are also other dancers who portray the characters of Ramayana as Rama, Shinta, Ravana, Hanuman, and Sugriwa. Kecak dance songs taken from the ritual dances sanghyang. Also, do not use musical instruments. Only used kincringan worn on the feet of dancers who portray the characters of Ramayana.

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 making ‘art’ which was once embedded in the culture as a whole, 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.
A Kecak dance being performed at Uluwatu, in Bali
A Kecak dance being performed at Kolese Kanisius, Jakarta

Performer, choreographer, and scholar I Wayan Dibia cites a contrasting theory that the Balinese were already developing the form when Spies arrived on the island. For example, well-known dancer I Limbak had incorporated Baris movements into the cak leader role during the 1920s. “Spies liked this innovation,” and it suggested that Limbak, “devise a spectacle based on the Ramayana,” accompanied by cak chorus rather than gamelan, as would have been usual.
how? Are you interested? You can come to bali to see this show.
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