Day 1: Part II - The Barong and Kris Dance, Bali

After breakfast, tour guide greeting us at the hotel lobby. Our first destination, travelling around Gianyar town to watch cultural dance. It is incomplete if not paying a visit to this culture dance when you're in Bali according to the tour guide. It's about 30 min drive from Kuta town. Excited with the travelling journey.

The Barong and Kris Dance is an integral part of Balinese culture. Balinese dances are famous all over the world and the Balinese themselves take them very seriously. The commercial performances for tourists that are today offered on a daily basis in several places of Bali do, of course, not have the same religious significance and atmosphere of a dance that is performed at a real temple festival.

Arriving at the cultural dance

Balinese traditional musicians

We arrived earlier 30min, to avoid large crowd.We were greeted with warm welcome by Balinese front desk and the same time distributing paper of notes about the history and story line of the Barong and Kris Dance in English version.They do have Chinese version too. Next we're heading into the hall for seating place. Lot's of places too choose from, mainly sitting in the center is the best part of all. While waiting for the  dance, we served with Balinese instrumental song to ease our bored there.

The Hall #1

The Hall #2

The Hall #3

History about the The Barong & Kris Dance

The Barong

The monkey friend

Dancers #1

Dancers #2

Dancers #3

Dancers #4

Dancers #1

The dance started at 0900hrs sharp without delay and it took an hour to complete the dance. I just summarized it, more detail, read here. the Barong dance is about restoring the balance between  good and evil and the dualities of life,  a ritual contest between chaos and order. On the stage in Kesiman or Batubulan this aspect is of course lost and it is more like a colourful musical comedy (with some slapstick elements). Nevertheless, the commercial Barong Dance performances are very interesting and you should not miss the opportunity to see one.

The Barong and Kris dance
Jl. Pasekan, Batubulan, Gianyar, Bali
Theater, Dance Studio