My favorite of the Balinese Dances is the Legong. Legong is a palace dance that features the prettiest young girls. The dancers used to be hand picked by the local prince.
Gorgeous costumes and an array of eye, shoulder, hand, head, hip, and foot movements dazzle us. The movement is synchronize with the Gamelan Orchestra.
The beauty and charm of this delicate and feminine dance is indisputable. It's not easy to find any dance in Bali and in other places that comparable to the grace and beauty of the legong. Beside the dance it self, many of musical compositions that accompanying it is among the sweetest and most beautiful on the island. Original music for legong accompaniment is gamelan pelegongan, a kind of percussion instruments with bronze keys, cymbals, and drums, although it can also accompanied by gamelan gong kebyar, the modern gamelan of Bali.
The legong are, lasem, kupu-kupu tarum, jobog, kuntul, legod bawa, smaradhana, andir, condong, and many others.
Some villages in Central and Southern Bali are considered home of the legong. They are, Peliatan, Ubud, Saba, Bedulu, Sukawati in Gianyar area, Binoh in Badung area, Kerambitan in Tabanan area, among others. These villages posses long legong traditions, and most of them still own high quality legong troupes today.
At first legong, as well as other dances at the time, allows only male dancers. Many decades later, female dancers take place, brought legong dance to the new height as we see today.
No comments:
Post a Comment