Cudamani 'Odalan Bali: an Offering of Music and D

Cudamani ‘Odalan Bali: An Offering of Music and Dance’

1st April 2005 San Francisco, Zellerbach Hall

by Renee Renouf

Cudamani refers to the third eye of Shiva, not only destroying but also annihilating ignorance. This program came with impressive credentials not noted prior to sitting down. An informative 45 minute-talk prior to the © Jorge Vismara curtain, made me realize the varied 'Odalan Bali' reviews genesis of this unusual program. recent Cudamani reviews In the 1970's, Judy Mitoma, a young more Renee Renouf reviews Discuss this review Japanese-American woman, was (Open for at least 6 months) studying Indonesian dance at UCLA at the high tide of the Ethno- musicology program and the Dance Department. She met Hardja Susilo and the two married. Their daughter Emiko Saraswati Susilo attended U.C., Berkeley’s Music Department, studying Balanese gamelan, performing with the nearby Gamelan Sekar Jaya. Emiko met and married I Dewa Putu Barata, going to live in Pengosekan, Barata’s native village in Bali.. Mitoma became a professor and chair of UCLA’s Dance Department; she was a key in the transformation to the current World Cultures Department. She also was one of the instrumental figures in the 1990 Los Angeles Asian Festival and now directs the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance. With Bali undergoing the transition pressures from an agricultural society, into the nine-to-five world, cell phones, television and set pieces for the tourist industry, Cudamani was created in 1997 in an effort to retain the ritual roots of Balinese tradition in the training of young artists.The founding directors were I Dewa Putu Berata, his brother Dewa Ketut Ali and I Nyoman Cerita. Emiko Sarasawti Susilo is an assistant director. These components coalesced in the creation of this representation of a day of preparation for and in a temple festival. Under the World Music Institute, a commission by the Savannah Music Festival, support by the Asian Cultural Council and the Ford Foundation’s Global Connection Program, this representation will provide American audiences with something of the serenity of a day in the life of what remains of Balinese traditional existence, the existence of which Emiko Saraswati Susilo so eloquently spoke before the curtain rose. The program provided copious notes, describing both the scene and identifying different parts, some details I will not mention. Preparation for a festival starts before dawn. Three women walk down the right aisle of the orchestra bearing clay vessels on their heads, delivering the water to the priestess who pours the contents into a larger vessel and stores one along side. Her hand delicately indicates touching of the water and blessing the area with her gestures. Girls emerge with long whisks which they alternately swish around the area, crouching as they move in a jackknife position, that defining posture to a squatting culture. We hear sporadic cock crows, the sound of birds, a gradual lightening of the sky. The girls unroll a mat revealing a young man still asleep. The men drift in, holding circular woven trays to prepare meat for the festival (Emiko related the quantities are monumental), while the women prepare the floral decorations, theirs a quiet communion. The men voluble, verging on the boisterous,; also perform a ritual dance. Both priest and priestess perform the necessary rituals; everything is in readiness for the festival. A notable part of this opening section is the spare, highly effective use of gamelan instruments; solitary tones, a crystalline sound, like sunlight glinting through raindrops, purity evoked through spareness, the sound of hammer against tempered brass, mellow, accented by the gestural flourish completing a sequence. The program’s second half is the Festival, starting with the three women bearing fruit down the aisle, the men dressed in festive sarongs which are bound up around the chest, improvising on the gamelan, a masterful, thunderous exclamation. Five sounds are required for an auspicious festival: The priestly mantras; the priests bells; ancient songs while sitting in the temple; the gamelan and the wooden slit drum. In this particular village women of all ages participate in dance as an offering. It is followed by a special offering of fruits, flowers, sweet rice cakes for the gods; onions, spices and meat for the buta kala, spirits who also relish cock fighting. The enactment of the cock fight is noisy, unruly, highly animated, the men gathered in a loose semi-circle, arms shooting out in various directions, rising on occasion, moving with great animation with their cross-legged position as a fulcrum. Eyes flashed, voices rose, choral at times, a single voice or a pair rising as echoes to the fingers and arms animating the proceedings. It is a definite high point in the program.

Thisgave way to the Legong Gering, the noted dance of pre- adolescent girls. In the village belief system, children are considered vessels of the divine, the girls frequently ending in trance, indicating the presence of a susuhunan. We normally do not see the ceremony of the girls receiving their headdress, but this was enacted for us. With the heightened atmosphere of the temple setting, the incense and tightly wrapped torso, one can easily imagine the impression created on the mind of the young participant. Ni Wayan Pebri Lestari and Dewa Ayu Eka Putri were the two exponents. One seemed of Western extraction, her timing rushing the beat while her flexibility was extraordinary; the other was a prototypic young Balinese, enormous eyes, round face, angular young body; she filled the phrase and the dance as if absorbed through countless exponents. It was left to Ni Kadek Sudarmanti to provide us with a flashing, blue and gold garbed kebyar, an innovation in North Bali in the 1930's, depicting a young man in love, but usually danced by a woman. Sudarmanti was a virtuoso, upper arms held at shoulder level, fan flashing in agitation manipulated, at waist height by a flexible wrist, the heart beat of the besotted young man, the free hand fluttering with its expressive fingers, legs in broad second position plie typical of Indonesian male dancing. The kebyar is followed by the Barong, the two-man animal dance, performed by I Made Mahardika and I Dewa Madir Sakura. We see them remove their tunics, applying their shin coverings before assuming the weight of this vehicle of Shiva. This Barong was characterized by a small, fierce face and a extraordinarily high, curved tail. The face might have been of a combative bunraku face of a wizened old man, while the effect evoked a fanciful toy lion. Before the curtain falls we witness the wrapping of the temple objects covering the gamelan, before the entire cast gathers together, stage front, to sit and chant Om Canti, Canti Om as the curtain falls. Cudamani provides a glimpse of village daily process, giving us a context in which some of the familiar dances and the music is heard in traditional Balinese life. While it is theatricalized, it has been fashioned with keen, loving aesthetic eyes, and the entire cast has participated in many parts of the final picture. It therefore exhibits a remarkable freshness, a cohesion which is near idyllic. If this production were to be reproduced and toured annually, some routine elements would undoubtedly creep in to toughen the minted patina. ne hopes that Cudamani can devise ways to make this or other productions as captivating this gift on April Fool’s Day.

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