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Japanese perform Balinese dances
"When I first saw a Balinese traditional dance I was astounded," said Indonesian Mia Damron, a student of Wyarihita Bali dance studio in Yokohama, Japan
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"When I first saw a Balinese traditional dance I was astounded," said Indonesian Mia Damron, a student of Wyarihita Bali dance studio in Yokohama, Japan.
On Friday night pupils of the studio performed in front of hundreds of spectators who had gathered in front of the Denpasar Art Center's Wantilan stage.
Everything about Bali was very hard to resist, Damron said. She is an example of how the beauty of Balinese culture has succeeded in attracting the adoration and devotion of so many people from all over the world.
She did not merely visit Bali to bask under its warm sun, but also to take an active role in honoring its culture and tradition.
On that night, Damron and her fellow dancers from Wyarihita studio performed nine traditional dances: Puspanjali, Legong Guak Macok, Cendrawasih, Oleg Tamulilingan, Bayan Nginte, Panji Semirang, Trunajaya, Kidang Kencana and Legong Supraba Duta.
The spectators, who had come intrigued by the notion of Japanese dancers performing Balinese dances, could not help but be infected by the enthusiasm emanating from the stage.
The dancers generally seemed well prepared, although they were not as nimble on their feet or as familiar with the steps as the Balinese dancers. However, their performance overall was a success.
Damron said she was very fond of Asian cultures, including Bali's.
"My heart is in Asia. I love all Asian cultures," she told The Jakarta Post after the performance.
She said when she visited Bali a few years ago she had instantly fallen in love with the traditional gamelan music that accompanied the Balinese dances. She said she had been amazed by the dancers' beauty and agility.
"So when I came back to Japan I looked for a Balinese dance teacher and eventually found Wyarihita studio," she said, adding that she had been learning the discipline for eight years.
"I was a classical ballet dancer before but I still find it very difficult to learn Balinese dances because they require us to lower our body most of the time, and my body is big and I have to adjust to the other dancers. On the contrary, ballet requires us to expand our body, so it was really difficult at first," she said.
Shoko Owada, another member of the Japanese dancing group, and who has visited Bali on several occasions, said she had been learning Balinese dance for almost six years and that it had taken three years for her to master the discipline.
She said she had visited Bali several times and that the dance had seemed so natural to her when she first saw it performed during her first visit to the island.
"Every time I saw Balinese dance I felt an impetus to move my body, so I decided to look for a teacher who could teach me the dance," she said.
She said learning the dance had been very tough to begin with. "When my teacher asked me to do a movement, my brain understood what she meant but my body could not follow suit. I was frustrated at first," she said, adding that she had found it difficult to remember the steps.
"Whenever my teacher taught a new movement I could do it at the time, but by the time of the next meeting I would already have forgotten it," she said.
Indonesian Ni Wayan Deni, the founder of Wyarihita, said she had established the studio in Japan in 1993.
The dancer, who hails from Buleleng regency and is married to a Japanese man, said she currently had 200 students.
She said members of her dance studio had performed in various art and cultural festivals and social events in Japan. "This is our second performance at the Bali Art Festival."
