Legong isn’t just a tradition on Bali: it’s an institution. Since the first sightseers arrived on the island in the 1920s, Legong has become the public face of this tiny South-East Asian outpost – a visual emblem that has long promoted Bali’s Hindu culture to millions of eager visitors.

But Legong has always been more than just a simple advert to draw the easy evening crowds – and it’s been going on for a lot longer than a hundred years.

All Balinese children are exposed to the world of dance long before they can walk. Modern Legong dancers are no exception: picked for their beauty, suppleness – and even better if they look alike – Legong hopefuls will often begin their first dance class soon after the age of five. By fourteen, the girls will be thinking of retiring.

Legong and Taksu, The Inner Spirit

At first, the young students mirror their teacher’s movements from behind. Later, with growing confidence, their guru will move behind them to direct their arms and feet. It’s only when the young dancers’ spirits are seen to have infused with the dance’s movements can the girls move with taksu – the Balinese concept of charisma and spiritual power. And only after memorising the complete Legong repertoire can the young protégées think of practising with a full gamelan orchestra.

The Spirit of Balinese Dance

A dancer in the West is pressured to express their ‘inner self’ and their personality to the full. The Balinese dancer, on the other hand, would like to move as far away from the ego as possible – letting the taksu, or the spirit they are playing, to talk and dance for them. Like Balinese painting, it is not about the artist or the finished item – but about the act of submission to a higher being, of self-offering, of briefly being at one with the niskala – the things we cannot see.

The Legong Performance

The stage is set. In the 1930s, legongs would dance at village feasts as the cool of the afternoon sun had set in. A crowd would gather under a palm-leaf canopy as the gamelan orchestra warmed up, and three little dancers – two legongs and their condong (‘chondong’), or young female attendant – would take their places at the front of the orchestra.

Legong dancers are always sumptuously dressed – wrapped from head-to-foot in silk cloth overlaid with gold brocade, and topped with a headdress of ornamental gold leaf dripping with perfumed jepun flowers. Their faces are always heavily made-up: thickly powdered, with a white dot – the priasan, or mark of a beautiful dancer – between their plucked, black-painted eyebrows.

‘Legong: Dance of the Virgins’ (1935)

1930s Bali saw a steep rise in Western tourism – with the island’s sultry image of ‘paradise’ promoted by photographs of bare-breasted Balinese maidens – and by exploitation films such as Legong: Dance of the Virgins. Shot on location by the Marquis Henry de la Falaise, it featured a love-triangle between two topless adolescent market girls and their barely older suitor. To the thrill of New York’s backrow ‘nudie-cutie’ fans, Legong: Dance of the Virgins shimmied past US censors – as the copious skin on show was National Geographic brown, not prudish pink. The Legong dance in the title only accounts for 2 ½ minutes of the film’s entire running-time of just over an hour…

The Warm Up

The legongs’ attendant, the condong, is always dressed more simply. She stands up lazily and takes centre stage. Quite suddenly, at an accent from the orchestra, it’s as if she’s hit by an electrical current. Her body strikes an intense pose, she starts to quiver, and the electricity shifts from her lightning-fast eyes down to her fingers and back up to the shivering flowers in her headdress. She picks up two hand-fans as a sign that the legongs should join her. Six fleeting eyes and thirty flickering fingers mesmerise the audience until she hands each legong a fan and retires into the background.

Magic in a Mirror Image

The two legongs now have the floor to themselves. Like the exquisite lines of a flowing drawing, the dancers morph from one character to the next without interruption; sometimes playing the same character in a tight mirror image before separating again to continue the story’s serpentine narrative. Twin fans flutter like the wings of a hummingbird; necks snap from side to side in perfect synchronisation as their eyes flash and trip to the mechanical pulsing of the gamelan. It is pure, unconfined, abstract pantomime at its best: the young dancers’ spirits lost, for the moment, in another time. Legong dance is pure, unconfined, abstract pantomime at its best.

Where to Watch Legong Dance on Bali

Although you’ll catch brief performances of Legong in many of the island’s 5-star hotels, Ubud continues to be the centre of Legong on Bali. Regular performances by a healthy number of village troupes ensure a dance every evening of the week.

The most polished performances are at Ubud Palace (‘Puri Ubud’) and on Monkey Forest Road at the Bale Banjar Ubud Kelod. Get there an hour early to make sure you get a front-row seat, cover up with mosquito lotion, sit back and enjoy the dance of a lifetime. All evening performances in Ubud last for 1 ½ hours, and cost between Rp.80,000 and Rp.100,000.

Old Legong, New Legong

Legong was never danced widely across Bali, with the most famous Legong schools found in Ubud’s Peliatan village and nearby Saba and Binoh. The dance has its feet planted firmly in the past: scholars believe that Legong first appeared as an entity in the 19th century after it split from the sacred trance-dance of Sanghyang Dedari performed by two benignly-possessed pre-pubescent girls. The newer Legong dance is secular – not religious – and was initially performed as entertainment for Balinese nobility before being opened up to the wider Balinese public.

And it has evolved again. Now, the lengthy tales of kings and ravens are abbreviated and condensed to appease a different concentration span – and to fit into the tight tourist schedule. Older women of 18 or 30 are also taking on the role. Having danced the Legong as children, they are now teachers in their own right who lend the dance a new beauty and maturity – as well as ensuring that the Legong is passed firmly to the next generation.

The Legong dance, like all Balinese performance, has always moved and flowed with the times. But like all dance on Bali it is also, in essence, nothing more than a transient, fleeting, selfless offering to the Gods – the gift of a young soul to the unseen.

Glossary

• legong – young, normally pre-pubescent dancer featuring in the Legong dance
• condong – young female attendant to the two Legong dancers
• gamelan – A traditional instrumental ensemble of Indonesia, typically involving numerous bronze percussion instruments
• guru – teacher
• priasan – white dot on a dancer’s forehead denoting beauty
• taksu – Balinese concept of charisma and inner spirit
• niskala – Balinese concept of ‘the unseen’

Its Galungan / Kuningan time of year again in Bali, and I feel so lucky that this is my second experience witnessing the joy and palatable energy of this incredible celebration. Every 210 days this island erupts with more color and festive buzz than its usual positive vibe. I love how the Balinese culture celebrates life and death and all the momentous miracles in- between.

Galungan in particular is probably my favorite because it celebrates something that is intangible, yet so powerful: the power of Good (dharma) and its prevalence over Evil (adharma). The word “Galungan” is derived from the ancient Java language meaning to win or to fight.

This festival also celebrates the descent of the Balinese Gods, accompanied by the ancestor spirits to the island. These extraordinary events call for a spectacular celebration and that is exactly what happens.

One sure sign that Galungan has begun are the festive ‘penjors’ (long bamboo pole in an arching shape representing Mt. Agung , highest mountain in Bali) that sprout over the end of each driveway or temple. The penjors have been spectacular this year, with bright colors splashing against the blue sky. These arching offerings are woven with beautiful fruit, coconut leaves and flowers rising from a small bamboo alter bearing offerings for visiting ancestors.

The preparation before and during Galungan set the stage for the final celebration of the festival which is Kuningan, the final day when the spirits ascend back to heaven. I find the stories behind each offering in this ancient, deep tradition intriguing.

For example, three days before Galungan is “Penyekeban” when families begin their preparations for Galungan. “Penyekeban” literally means “the day to cover up “, as this is the day when green bananas are covered up in huge clay pots to speed their ripening.

Two days before Galungan – “Penyajahan” – marks a time of introspection for Balinese, and more prosaically, a time to make the Balinese cakes known as jaja. These colored cakes made of fried rice dough are used in offerings and are also eaten specially on Galungan. This time of the year finds a glut of jaja in every village market.

A day before Galungan – “Penampahan”, or slaughter day – Balinese slaughter the sacrificial animals that will go into the temple or altar offerings. Galungan is marked by the sudden surplus of traditional Balinese food, like lawar (a spicy pork and coconut sauce dish) and satay. All this is just before Galungan!

The celebrations, visiting with ancestors and celebrating past and current lives all comes to a close with Kuningan. On this day yellow rice is prepared as the offerings to Gods before they return to nirvana.

Conventional wisdom is to stay away from Bali on Nyepi; but you would be missing something really unique. This silent holiday falls next on March 29th 2017. It is a national day of silence, the start of the Balinese Hindu new year and so a time to reflect on the year past and plan for the year ahead. Roughly 90 percent of Balinese are Hindu, and they take Nyepi seriously. No cars or residents are allowed on the street, and anyone found engaging in any activity of the sort can be arrested.

Hotel services are generally limited, as hotels have to make special arrangements for certain staff to sleep over so they can be present to work on Nyepi. While hotels can operate with electricity, the Balinese can not use it. Hotel guests are not allowed to leave their properties. There’s no escape: even the airports are closed. For some people this is very limiting and possible boring, but for others it is an opportunity to find a meditative peace and quiet. If you are staying in a hotel or villa, there is plenty of opportunity to enjoy your time. Lounge by the pool, or get a soothing Balinese massage. At most accommodations the kitchen is in full swing preparing culinary delights.

Ogoh-ogoh: giant, mythical Balinese monsters made from papier-mâché and Styrofoam paraded on the eve of Nyepi.

A newish tradition maintains that villagers throughout Bali spend the weeks leading up to Nyepi making huge creatures of papier-mâché and fabric called “Ogoh-ogoh – giant monsters paraded on the eve of Nyepi – aren’t exactly an ancient tradition. In fact they’ve only been around since the mid-Eighties.” Ogoh ogoh are made to look as terrifying as possible, their bodies deformed and the faces distorted “From six-breasted Rangda witches suckling their devil-babies to saber-toothed pigs and dangling boobs galore, these mythical monsters are carried through the streets on bamboo plinths.”

Ngerupuk: the drawing together and driving out of evil spirits on the eve of Nyepi.

On the day before Nyepi (ngerupuk) the Ogoh ogoh around Bali are paraded through their respective villages for the purpose of driving out the evil spirits. These embodiments of evil (Ogoh-ogoh) should technically be burnt at midnight as a symbolic purging of wickedness. Traditions practiced around Bali during Ngerupuk vary, for instance, young men from Nagi village, wearing only sarongs and udeng (a traditional headband worn by Balinese men), throw glowing embers of burning husks at each other. The onlooking crowd that includes hotel guests stand around and cheer, and try to stay out of harm’s way. This is conducted all in good fun, with the crowds of bystanders cheering in the spirit of camaraderie.

The Day After Nyepi: Pilgrimages, Smooching and Manis Nyepi.

The day after Nyepi is called Manis (meaning sweet) Nyepi, the ceremonies continue with mass pilgrimages to important temple around Bali. Another tradition only in Sesetan (Denpasar) sees village girls take it in turns to be carried down the street and kissed by a hopeful future husband. Experiencing Nyepi could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to participate in an age-old ritual that combines colorful spectacle and quiet contemplation. Bali is the only place in the world you will enjoy the real Nyepi. Although both neighboring islands Lombok and Java have Nyepi ceremonies, they both pale in comparison to what you will see in Bali. In todays high-tech society, a day of silence can be rare and wonderful. And that’s priceless.

Giant, mythical Balinese monsters made from papier-mâché and Styrofoam paraded on the eve of Nyepi. A newish tradition maintains that villagers throughout Bali spend the weeks leading up to Nyepi making huge creatures of papier-mâché and fabric called “Ogoh-ogoh – giant monsters paraded on the eve of Nyepi – aren’t exactly an ancient tradition. In fact they’ve only been around since the mid-Eighties.” Ogoh ogoh are made to look as terrifying as possible, their bodies deformed and the faces distorted “From six-breasted Rangda witches suckling their devil-babies to saber-toothed pigs and dangling boobs galore, these mythical monsters are carried through the streets on bamboo plinths.”

Ngerupuk: the drawing together and driving out of evil spirits on the eve of Nyepi.

On the day before Nyepi (ngerupuk) the Ogoh ogoh around Bali are paraded through their respective villages for the purpose of driving out the evil spirits. These embodiments of evil (Ogoh-ogoh) should technically be burnt at midnight as a symbolic purging of wickedness. Traditions practiced around Bali during Ngerupuk vary, for instance, young men from Nagi village, wearing only sarongs and udeng (a traditional headband worn by Balinese men), throw glowing embers of burning husks at each other. The onlooking crowd that includes hotel guests stand around and cheer, and try to stay out of harm’s way. This is conducted all in good fun, with the crowds of bystanders cheering in the spirit of camaraderie.

The Day After Nyepi: Pilgrimages, Smooching and Manis Nyepi.

The day after Nyepi is called Manis (meaning sweet) Nyepi, the ceremonies continue with mass pilgrimages to important temple around Bali. Another tradition only in Sesetan (Denpasar) sees village girls take it in turns to be carried down the street and kissed by a hopeful future husband. Experiencing Nyepi could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to participate in an age-old ritual that combines colorful spectacle and quiet contemplation. Bali is the only place in the world you will enjoy the real Nyepi. Although both neighboring islands Lombok and Java have Nyepi ceremonies, they both pale in comparison to what you will see in Bali. In todays high-tech society, a day of silence can be rare and wonderful. And that’s priceless.

Nyepi Dates for 2017-2020

The Nyepi Day of Silence is always marked by tilem, or the new (‘dark’) moon that welcomes in the spring equinox – strange on a tropical island with no winter or summer. But parts of India do – and the lunar Saka (Çaka) calendar was born in India, not Bali. On Bali, the Hindu Lunar New Year’s Day marks the end of the sticky, sickly wet season and a return to the dry. And in 1980 it was marked as an Indonesian Tanggal Merah, or Public Holiday: Hari Raya Nyepi.

• Nyepi Day 2017: Wednesday, 29th March (Hindu Saka Year 1939)
• Nyepi Day 2018: Sunday, 18th March (Hindu Saka Year 1940)
• Nyepi Day 2019: Thursday, 7th March (Hindu Saka Year 1941)
• Nyepi Day 2020: Wednesday, 25th March (Hindu Saka Year 1942)