Tropical Heat Tour: Bali Part 27
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
I pretty much stayed in my room all morning and afternoon to rest my muscles, write a long story about yesterday’s royal cremation ceremony and process all of my photos. As evening floated into view, I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to catch one final gamelan / dance show, this one performed by the Peliatan Masters at the Agung Rai Museum of Art. Although I saw this same troupe and set on my first visit to Bali, I went for it again because I liked it so much. The first time, due to rain, it was held inside the museum. But, this time, the night sky was all clear, allowing the performance to be staged in front of a beautiful temple setting outside. It was kind of lame that they set up the first row of plastic chairs a full 12 feet away from the front of the stage, requiring maximum zoom, which, in such low light, made all of my photos quite grainy. (I didn’t feel like using the flash.)
The other lame thing was another bunch of rude tourists who talked through the performance. A man right next to me kept chattering away with his little kid, so when the second piece started, I grabbed my chair, walked around back, and set up shop on the opposite side. My view from there was partially obstructed by the gamelan, and another little kid kept acting up, but at least that family got up and left for some reason a little bit later. This show featured the usual Pendet welcome dance, the Baris warrior dance, the Legong Lasem dance, which enacts the tale of a royal romance tragedy, the rarely seen Kebyar Duduk sitting dance, the Taruna Jaya dance, which celebrates the many moods of adolescence, and the Jauk dance, featuring a monster spirit who cavorts all over the stage and jokes around with the audience.
After the show ended and everyone filtered out, there were no ARMA employees or shuttle vans to be seen, so I walked up to their restaurant and asked about it. After making a couple of phone calls, they informed me the shuttle drivers had all departed or gone home. I nicely mentioned that I paid 75,000 rupiah for the show and that the ticket said shuttle van transport from the center of Ubud was included. That did the trick, as a member of the gamelan pulled up a few minutes later and drove me back to center of town. Sometimes, you just have to give a little nudge.
Roll over photos for captions.
Words and photos ©2012 Arcane Candy.
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