Bali Arts Festival

Every year on the 14th of june at two o'clock in the afternoon, the inception is a festival is heralded with the rhythmic sounds of Balinese kendangs, drums and cenceng cymbals. Hundreds of men, dressed in the battle costumes of Majapahit wariors, strike these instruments with both hands. they advance in line, accompanied by women garbed like princesses and ladies in waiting.

then come Ramayan dancers, Calonarang performers, and a long row of exquistitely dressed women carring tall, meru-shaped offerings. And such a procession goes on hour after hour, group after group, regency after regency.

Welcome to the opening of the 20th Bali arts festifal. The brainchild of the Academy of Arts Denpasar (STSI), the festival is a one-month fantasia of dance, music, exhibition and culture.

According to research conducted by the STSI Academy of Arts, Bali has more than 6,000 seka or organizations involved in one way or another is the field of the arts. Most of them are for the purpose of performing of dance and music in religion. Almost every banjar or every village has its own Gong Kebyar gamelan orchestra, or at least its Gong Beleganjur. There is abottomless pool of cultural latent from which people and groups compete each year for the privilege of presenting their show to the city crowds of Denpasar.

The festival takes places in a huge "Art Center" located in the heart of the city of Denpasar. This art center contains a huge 6000-seat amphitheater for the performing of large-scale "sendratari" ballets, but there are also a series of smaller venues adapted to the intimate atmosphere of traditional dance and theater. These building were built according to the Balinese concepts of architecture. The Ksirarnawa amphitheater thus has a huge split-gate as one sees only in the biggest Balinese temple.

While remaining extraordinary resilient, Balinese culture is opening to the world, albeit in a Balinese way: it is the world that is becoming "Balinese".