Gambuh Classical Performance Part I

Gambuh is the oldest continuously performed dance-drama form in Bali. It is a surviving, ancient court form that belongs to the bebali semi-sacred tradition. With a traceable history of at least four hundred years it has roots in the Majapahit Empire. A grand and complex performance, its gestures and music are firmly rooted in what is termed the Balinese classical style. The style is elevated and regal, suggestive of its court origins. Generally agreed to be the source of many later classical forms such as Topeng and Legong, it is also still a key source and influence on modern Balinese choreographers looking for a musical structure and design springboard for their work. In this sense, it is the bridge between the classical past and present within Balinese performance in general. It is as much a source to Balinese performance genres as Shakespearian plays are to English-speaking drama.

It can be argued that Shakespeare gave us much of the language still current in English-language drama, and Gambuh gave to Balinese performance a complete language of body movement. In Gambuh, it is movement, gesture and structure that act as key sources. In each case, one dominating influence can be traced through centuries of work and is still important today. In Balinese thinking, innovation is usually a positive development but almost always that same innovation will have clearly understood roots and connections. New forms develop and evolve continually in Bali, but they grow out as branches, rather than exist as completely separate species. Performance is organic and is viewed as part of something greater, in a religious, but also performance, sense. The linkage is through training, tradition, religious practice and shared understandings of purpose; performance is intricately entwined with the past.

Gambuh is often described as the first ancestor of the Balinese dancedrama and has been providing inspiration and various aesthetic concepts and artistic methods that helped establish many succeeding genres. The story, dance costumes, headdress, the theatrical way of featuring the essence of dramatic characters rather than the individual character itself, and the stylistic form of dance and speech diction of Gambuh are also employed in descending genres such as Topeng masked theatre, Arja opera sung dance-drama, Prembon comedic drama in a style similar in many ways to Commedia dell’arte, and Sendratari narrated dance-drama, Calonarang mystical/magical theatre, and many new dance creations. Topeng masked theatre also employs the dance costume of Gambuh, from the headdress to the footwear. For example, by only adding the masks to match the dramatic characters of another narrative source, Babad, the Gambuh dancers in one village, Batuan, can perform Topeng dance-drama. An individual dancer/ performer might begin a career with Gambuh and then move on through the years to a series of other forms of performance that all relate in one way or another directly to the original source form of Gambuh. In learning each new form, the performer’s skills are added to and techniques expanded and adapted. Without the mask, the narrative repertoire enacted in Gambuh performance, the romance of the Panji Cycle, is also demonstrated in the later form of Arja sung dance-drama, replacing the speech diction, mostly spoken in Gambuh, into partly sung and partly spoken sequences. In Calonarang dance-drama, many folk – and witch-like characters complement the Gambuh dance style, costumes and characterisation to enact stories that feature black magic, sickness and death. In effect, these scenes containing witches, corpses and an array of folk characters mostly distinguish Calonarang from the Gambuh dance-drama.

The most recently created form and the most spectacular dance-drama, Sendratari, also employs and develops music repertoires, dance style and characterisations from Gambuh. By modifying the Gambuh costumes and choreography, changing the story, and assigning one person to render all the vocal arts, speech diction and dialogue, Sendratari appears as a distinctive genre, in which all dancers are only miming the acting and dance movement, without delivering any dialogue or narration. It is significant that contemporary Balinese choreographers working on new compositions still often turn to Gambuh as a major source for their work. Many of the artistic elements of Gambuh, especially its highly stylistic acting and dance style, are still prevalent and pervasive in various recent dance compositions, including the popular tourist Barong and Rangda dance-drama.

The vocabularies of movements from Gambuh, that can be seen in many succeeding genres previously mentioned, includes the movements of eyes, head, neck, hands, fingers and feet. The dramatic and aesthetic concepts of these movements are still well maintained in the other genres. The sharp flicking of eyes points to the direction, object or person of focus, staring eyes indicates curiosity, glancing eyes suggests madness, various mudra (gestures derived from classical Indian dance terminology) hand gestures and finger positions indicate the type of character and the motive for action; various foot movements of twisting, lifting, stepping sideways and back and forth and sudden jumps/strides for cueing the musicians are all derived from Gambuh. Some dance patterns/cadences composed by combining two to five different movements in Gambuh can very frequently be identified in the descending genres. Those patterns include, among many others, ulap-ulap (eyeing pattern), which suggests investigation of an object or person and are repeated often throughout the performance; touching and raising a robe indicates readiness to leave; the circular and evasive kissing pattern signifies a love scene; the middle finger moving towards the headdress (as it seems to the outside observer) suggests touching of the third eye. Specific positions vary according to the gender of the performer; for example, a male kneels with only one knee resting on the ground whereas a female kneels with both knees touching the ground. In addition, tangkep (facial expression) and the standard coded body postures in almost all forms of performance are also derived from Gambuh dance-drama. These coded body positions are also known as agem, basic position; left or right (rarely middle) position is indicated by where the body’s weight is directed. The unified balance is not established by the symmetrical lines or middle and equal positions, but by composing the imbalance and balance, complementing the strong limb with the soft limb, and combining the straight lines and tilted lines or equilibrium and asymmetry. Thus, dynamic balance is more prevalent and preferred than stable balance. This concept of dynamic balance is central to understanding 

Balinese performance in general. Like the swastika, the movement is circular and continual, like a wheel turning, as one-sided balance is corrected by a movement to the opposite side and so on for eternity. For example, in the right position, the body weight is allotted to the right foot that makes it strong, while the left is soft and relaxed. When the entire body belongs in effect to the back right corner, the facial focus must be directed towards the front left corner. The left ear is now higher than the right one, because of the rightward slanted body, so the right elbow must be brought up, equal to the height of the left ear. Since this right position makes the right elbow and foot strong, the softer and more relaxed left hand and foot must do or initiate the elaborating movements, whether twisting, lifting, jumping, jerking or walking. All applies equally in reverse when the weight is on the other side. Balinese performance gives the impression of continual movement in the hands, eyes, feet, head or torso. This makes it significantly different from some other classical dance forms, also derived from Indian classical dance, in South East Asia. The Thai, male, masked dance known as Khon, for example, appears slower, stiller and more grounded; in that form, points of balance are often found and momentarily held. To begin the standard coded body postures derived from Gambuh, the abdominal area is held in until the chest is pulled up and the torso slightly arches back. In a typical standing position, thighs and feet turn out from as little as 45 degrees for female characters to as wide as 170 degrees for male characters. The knees bend down unsymmetrically so that only one foot fully supports the body weight, which is slightly tilted to either right or left. The toes flex upward, especially those of the foot that stays in front of theother or lifts up from the floor. Derived from Gambuh, female characters have a narrower stance and make a shorter stride, moving more slowly, gently and subtly than the male characters, who have a wider stance and a longer stride with strong accentuated and less flowing gestures. Interestingly, though, dancers of either gender can learn to play male or female roles. Often male teachers instruct female characters in many Balinese dance and dance-drama forms.