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Trance and dance at Grand Bali Beach Hotel
A woman in white danced slowly around the mask of Rangda
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woman in white danced slowly around the mask of Rangda. Her eyes were shut but her steps were steady and her undulating arms never touched the man balancing the sacred mask above his head.
Clanging cymbals and rumbling gongs filled the night air, but the dancer was in a trance, responding to the music of an invisible world. For the moment she was oblivious to the other devotees who had followed Rangda in a ritual circling that began and ended at temple Pura Manik Tirtha Sari.
Someone handed her an offering of flowers, and without opening her eyes the woman incorporated the blossoms into her dance, accompanying the mask through the temple gates into its inner sanctum.
The next day Anak Agung Okawati did not remember her trance, but she recalled the sensations she had felt while dancing.
“It was a good feeling,” she said. “I was aware and at the same time I was unaware. I felt like I was standing still, but my feet were moving. It was strange, but in a positive way.”
Okawati’s participation in the ritual at Pura Manik Tirtha Sari was related to her job at the Inna Grand Bali Beach Hotel where the temple is located.
Unlike many hotels in Bali which stage dances especially for tourists, the Bali Beach Hotel has sacred spaces that require ceremonies conducted for the benefit of the spirits believed to inhabit them.
To insure that these ceremonies are properly conducted, Okawati was asked to come out of retirement to help the hotel maintain a balanced relationship with the spiritual world that is part of its history. She was one of the hotel’s first employees when it opened in 1966 as the Inna Grand Bali Beach.
The hotel’s construction had been planned by Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, who asked that a special room be dedicated to the spirit of Nyi Roro Kidul, the queen of the South Seas.
Nowadays, this room is preserved with icons representing both Sukarno and Roro Kidul, and Okawati oversees the daily offerings brought to them both.
She also provides holy water for the hotel employees who go to the room for prayer and meditation.
“We could not give this job to just anyone,” says the hotel’s general manager Sugeng Pramono.
“It has to be someone like Ibu Okawati who understands the history of the hotel and its sacred spaces.”
Gusti Ayu Ariani, the resident manager of the hotel, agrees.
“Ibu Okawati has a special connection to the spiritual life of our hotel. When she danced in front of the temple, her face was transformed in a beautiful way that made us all feel safe and protected.”
— JP/Ron Jenkins
