Preposition Of Place

Bali Arts Festival 2008

 

Bali is renowned for having maintained its traditional culture against the sweeping tides of the Bali calendar event modern world. In parts of the Island, Life goes on as it has for centuries, with rhythms of ritual, creativity and culture still serving as a community compass, here the arts are woven into everyday, making Bali a World Center of music, dance and visual arts.

The great annual Bali Art Festival 2008 will be on 14th June –12th July 2008 and take places in Art Centre at Denpasar the capital city of Bali province. The Bali Arts Festival is more then a month of daily performances, handicraft exhibitions and other related cultural and commercial activities during which literally the whole of Bali comes to the city to present its offerings of dance, music and beauty.

On display are trances from remote mountain slopes, forgotten or recently revived village dances, food and offering contests, classical palace dances, stars of Balinese stage, odd musical performances, “kreasi baru” (new creations) from the dance schools of Denpasar, as well as contemporary choreography and dance companies from other islands and from abroad.

Each year the Bali Arts Festival, beside the perform classical dances of the island, such as the legong, gambuh, kecak, barong, baris, mask dances and the like, is based on the theme around which new “dance choreography” is produced and old village dances and activities revived. Over the years, the whole range of classical Balinese stories - Ramayana, Mahabharata, Sutasoma, Panji - have thus been turned into “colossal” Sendratari Ballets.

It begins in the villages, where the sekaa or cultural groups are selected and organized at the regency level, vie with each other to perform the Arts Festival and thus display in front of a large audience the uniqueness of their village of birth and resting place of their ancestors.

The Bali Arts Festival is the Denpasar cultural event of the year, perhaps it would no be too far fetched to suggest that it is the cultural event of Indonesia. The festival is thus a unique opportunity to see local village culture both “live” and at first hand. Tourists are warmly welcomed.

If you are interested in having Bali Art Festival, why you do not come this year?