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Bali loses a passionate lover in Mari Nabeshima
For a few hours on that gloomy Sunday morning, I Kadek Suardana was a man in grief, a husband in despair
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or a few hours on that gloomy Sunday morning, I Kadek Suardana was a man in grief, a husband in despair. His wife, Mari Nabeshima had passed away at 8 a.m. that morning, paralyzing him with the anguish of not being able to save her.
Courtesy Widnyana Sudibya
His body shook as he crumbled on a wooden desk in his family compound in Taensiat. His aunt and long-time friend Nyoman Suarsa tried to comfort him to no avail.
Suardana, a noted dramatist who articulates and juggles words with ease, could only repeat one uttered sentence.
“It’s all nyat now, nyat.”
The word refers to “ebb tide” or “water flow away leaving nothing but a parched land.”
Outside the room, Suardana relatives and members of the banjar (traditional neighborhood organization) Taensiat flocked the front yard.
In customary silence, they prepared all the necessary paraphernalia. The elders decorated the Bale Dangin ritual pavilion, where Mari’s body, draped in beautiful batik, was placed. The women were already busy making offerings in the small family temple.
Suardana rose from his grief when a memory flashed across his mind. Mari, an ethnomusicologist with a Ph.D from Tokyo’s Geijutsu Daigaku University of Fine Arts and Music, loved the sounds of Bali’s “gender” xylophone the most.
“Bring the ‘gender’ here and have them played before her body,” he said softly. Minutes later, a haunting melody filled the air. It was a song of separation, of longing, that is usually played in a shadow puppet show when the heroic Pandawa bid their loved ones farewell before marching into an uncharted forest for a 13 year-long exile.
It was a tribute song for Mari, who had touched many people in many different ways here in Bali. For Kadek Suardana, the dramatist who gave birth to Gambuh Macbeth, a majestic union of Shakespeare’s dramatic personae with Balinese ancient dance drama, Mari was nothing short of his compass.
Despite his prowess — he is a decorated director and composer — Suardana was an amateur, to say the least, in other fields, be it management, finance or things as simple as buying himself new clothes.
Things changed for the better when he married Mari in 2002.
Suardana’s friends would forever be indebted to Mari for that transformation.
“Mari was also a very creative and talented musician. I believe Mari’s works challenged and spurred Suardana to be creative,” poet Mas Ruscitadewi said.
Her final work, the musical play Sri Tanjung: The Scent of Innocence, won huge recognition on the local and national stage. Mari created the musical concept of the play, which has been acknowledged as the piece’s strongest aspect.
The play was based on a classical lore in Banyuwangi, East Java.
Born in 1972 in Tokyo, Mari first visited Bali in 1996 when she interviewed Kadek Suardana for a Japanese magazine. But her love for Bali had blossomed years earlier, when she studied Balinese gamelan in Tokyo, culminating in her Ph.D dissertation on Balinese Kidung and Kawi languages.
In 1998 she returned to Bali and performed in the contemporary music festival.
To her friends, Mari was the timid, soft-spoken woman with a sharp intellect, powerful looks, and, most importantly, a generous heart.
“She loved to help her friends in preparing a performances or in researching a subject,” a friend said.
In her last days, Mari was busy assisting her friends preparing the performance of the New York-based Gong Kebyar Darma Suar Negara at the Bali Arts Festival.
“Last week she insisted on traveling to Yogyakarta for a music workshop despite her deteriorating condition. She said she wanted to show her appreciation and respect to the artists who had worked very hard to organize the event,” Suardana said.
Her condition worsened rapidly upon her return from the city. And on Friday, she was rushed into Wangaya hospital.
There, doctors diagnosed her illness as dengue shock syndrome and assigned a special team of doctors to treat her.
On Sunday morning she passed away. Bali’s vice governor A.A. Puspayoga and his wife Bintang, both long-time family friends and admirers of Mari’s work, stood by her bed when Mari began her journey to the next life.
On Friday, the people of Taensiat will escort Mari Nabeshima’s body to Denpasar cemetery for a Ngaben cremation ritual. They will not usher her as an accomplished artist, nor as a respected ethnomusicologist. Instead, they will accompany her as one of their own.
“She never shied away from her responsibilities as a member of this community; she learned how to make offerings, she was involved in all customary and religious works required of a Balinese woman, and she did it all with joy. She had became a part of this community and we will honor her as such,” a respected elder, Tjok Ratmadi said.
A fitting honor for a woman who loved Bali and its unique culture with unbridled passion.
Her final work, the musical play Sri Tanjung: The Scent of Innocence, won huge recognition on the local and national stage.
