Gambuh Classical Performance Part V

As all dancers for this particular performance are faculty members of ISI Denpasar, many of the partial rehearsals take place around the room or in the front office of appropriate faculty members who are also the main performers. They are mostly accompanied by tape-recorded music or they create music vocally, imitating the corresponding musical piece. The partial rehearsal concentrates on the section that requires a group dance or at least more than one dancer. If an individual dancer practises independently, that dancer typically rehearses to perfect technique and certain movements or song or speech diction. No instructor is needed as they are all instructors themselves,

both in their village and at the Institute. In a village rehearsal, there would usually be an outside eye, such as a fellow dancer, at such rehearsals. About 20 minutes’ drive north-east of the capital city Denpasar, the Gambuh performance was held in the temple of Gegaduhan Jagat in conjunction with the Ngusaba celebration. This is a major festival that takes place in each village about every ten years; if the village does not yet have enough resources, the festival might be postponed for several more years. It is a purification ceremony designed to achieve balance between human and other humans, humans and gods and between humans and the environment. The festival must run a minimum of 11 days. Throughout this period, rituals and performances of various forms always occur. Certain performances are required, and Gambuh, for example, must be presented at least twice. There are also performances of Topeng and Wayang. The local villagers set the plan for celebrating the festival and collected the funds to pay for the performances one year ahead. Many villages do not have their own specialist Gambuh troupe and must hire one – in this case from ISI Denpasar. Preparing the ceremony has taken about three weeks. Early in the morning of the ceremonial day, villagers begin the preparations according to their own village role. A certain number of people are assigned to escort three holy priests while others are assigned to welcome a number of artist–performers from surrounding areas. The rest of the villagers are in charge of a number of ceremonial preparations in the temple, such as making or distributing offerings, playing gamelan music, dancing, singing ritual songs, assisting priests, making and distributing foods and drinks and staging cockfights.

All the dancers in this case are faculty members; most of the musicians, too, are faculty, supported by a smaller number of students. At about 7 a.m., this group leaves from the Institute and travels together to the performance site. The gamelan musicians are taken directly to the ceremonial performance site at the temple known as Gegaduhan Jagat, while all dancers are led to a family house across from the temple where they are served drinks and several types of Balinese cakes. The dancers begin to dress into special costumes, which takes a little over an hour. During this process, the sacred headdresses of the Gambuh dancers are consecrated and the Pamangku (the local priest) sprinkles the dancers with holy water.

A similar ceremony is observed for the Topeng masks and headdresses. In Balinese culture, the head is considered holy and the closest point of the body to the gods. The welcome food and drinks are served later to the musicians after the orchestra has been set up. This communal welcoming is an important part of the preparation processes at work in the festival, and it ensures integration of the visitors into the community. The ceremonial aspects of blessing the masks and headdresses are also part of the performance preparation for all the participants. Western actors will similarly prepare, also partly through the costume, while gazing into the mirror and feeling the sense of the new character establishing itself. In a way, this takes the actors outside of themselves and allows a mild form of possession to take place; in the Western context, this is, of course, mainly or entirely a conscious process. At the same time, when about to perform a complex, demanding role actors may, in true Stanislavskian fashion, begin emotional preparation using deliberate psychological processes. However, in the Balinese system the performers prepare spiritually as a group, bonded together and reminded of the spiritual function of their performance. In the case of the more holy performance forms, sometimes involving states of trance, the dressing/blessing procedures take on an even more crucial function of preparation. About an hour later, the ceremony itself begins. Several full and semiformalised theatrical forms occur simultaneously, with the performance of various ritual and communal theatre rites. The villagers present themselves in temple dress to participate in various parts of the ceremony. Men and boys dress with a symbolic masculine knot (kancut) on the front of their wrap-round cloth (kamen) and wear a headdress that is usually white. Women and girls put on a tightly wrapped cloth (also known as kamen) and decorate their braided hair with flowers; most females these days wear false hair or wigs to represent the traditional long, braided hair, which is regarded as a symbol of beauty. Most women, especially teenagers, use light facial make-up and scents, unlike the strong perfumes and make-up employed by the dancers.

Three Pedanda priests (representing the three holy realms) lead the overall ceremony, cited on the main, tallest, raised pavilion. These priests, invited from adjacent areas, consist of a Siwa from Padang Tegal village, a Buddhist from the village of Batuan Padang Aji and a Bujangga Rsi from Kesiman village. Before each performance area (kalangan) can be used, they are all consecrated to appease the Butha (lower spirits) before their earth can be stepped on. On the upper stage of the largest hall, the Gong Kebyar music ensemble of about 35 musicians begins with an overture. Soon after, it accompanies the Rejang dance of 30 girls and the Baris dance that uses 30 boys. After each group has performed about 15 minutes respectively, the dancers join a procession, first circling the perimeter of the main ceremonial tower of offering three times, which is assembled at the front of the priests’ pavilion. Next, on the perimeter, below a smaller offering tower, a Topeng performer with a basket of masks is waiting to begin. The same music ensemble finally accompanies his Topeng Pajegan show – a solo-performance masked theatre. This masked show, enacting the local chronicle, is staged in front of the female chorus, which is singing praises to the gods. In the left corner of the same hall, the ritual Wayang Lemah puppet performance is in progress. Various ritual processions proceed simultaneously with all these performance arts. As always, colourful and elaborate forms of offering are placed, offered or dedicated in every part of the ceremonial site.

The female chorus recite the kidung song with lyrics glorifying higher spiritual powers, similar to those performed in a Western church Sunday service. A smaller group of people are assembled around a ritual dramatic reading (kakawin) in which one person reads and at the same time sings the lyric of a dramatic poem, which is derived either from local, Javanese and mostly Indian epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. In front of the female chorus, the Topeng Pajegan masked one-man show enacts a story drawn from the local chronicle babad, accompanied by the Gong Kebyar music orchestra.

The dancer shifts from one character to the other by changing his mask, headdress, speech diction, rhetoric and vocabulary of movements. The audience generally admires the technique rather than being drawn much into the narrative as this is already well known to them. At the front right side of the priest’s pavilion and away from the largest hall, about 30 musicians from the Institute begin to play the Semar Pagulingan, a musical ensemble with an overture. While the Gong Kebyar features the Pelog scale, the Semar Pagulingan features the Slendro scale. After playing the overture, the ensemble plays to accompany the Gambuh dance-drama until the end of the show.