Yoni & the Kulture Kids of Tomorrow

You don't hear or read much about child prodigies in Bali. That's certainly not to say that there are none. At eight years of age Yoni is one of the best child dancers in Bali. She has been dancing Legong and many other difficult Balinese dances basically since she could walk.

I was spellbound the first time I saw her dance - her nimble energetic movements were precise and stylised, her mimic beaming with mature expression. At only six years of age she was already better than kids years older and her strength and confidence was like that of an adult.

When Balinese see a child like this, they believe she is incarnation of a talented ancestor - her talented is something taken for granted - encouraged - but never pushed. In fact Yoni pushes herself. Her mother told me that one day after watch a video clip of Peliatan style Legong she had already incorporated many of the moves in her own dance.

Yoni is from Sanur and, unlike Ubud these days, the area is not renown for its performing art forms dancers, in spite of the fact there are a handful of talented dancers but these are limited to a small number of families.

Good Legongs, more than anything else, are scarce. Aged six and a half, Yoni won the Oleg Tambulilingan prize for all of Bali and also competed fiercely in the Condong and Taruna Jaya dance-offs against 12 year-olds. This latter dance in fact is normally danced by young teenagers.

Her talent is not limited to female dances. In two short lessons, she had mastered the basics of the warrior dance known as Baris and then ambitiously performed the dance in public in the same week. Such a dance would probably take other kids months to learn.

One of Yoni's more unusual talents is her natural ear for gamelan music. Gamelan is traditionally played by men but more and more girls and women these days are learning. Without any formal training she worked out a song by herself on the gender wayang, the most difficult Balinese instrument which requires a two-handed contrary motion technique. She then started learning at the association run by my wife to preserve classical gamelan and dance called Mekar Bhuana. She can now play a number of pieces and is so sure of herself that she often tells the other kids "how to play it right". Dwarfed by the large gamelan instrument, she must use a stool to reach the keys. Yoni is fact so multi-talented that an Australian couple are writing a children's book about her.

There are probably many others like Yoni in Bali but perhaps their talents are not recognized or their parents are unsure how to direct them. The other thing is finance. Perhaps a child is keen to dance or play gamelan but can't afford the expensive gold-gilded costumes or bronze gamelan instrument.

Over the last year or so, there's been much talk in the Balinese papers about preserving "ajeg Bali" or Bali's own cultural identity. In practice however, the Balinese public are slowly turning away from their own culture. Modelling competitions and talent quests (for singing cheesy, commercialized pop music, of course!) are more popular draw-cards for Balinese school kids - a superficial world that is modern, glamourous and attractively global.

Like the papers say, the Balinese themselves have to take responsibility for preserving their own culture and recognising kids with talent for learning it to build the generations of tomorrow.
After all, who's going to preserve the Balinese arts if it's not the Balinese?

Balinese dance
Balinese dance simply thrives on the performing arts and Sanur is no exception. On the surface, Sanur may appear little more than a sleepy hotel resort, dotted with art-shops and restaurants. If you peep behind the scenes, however, you will find that this ancient fishing village is the home to a wonderful array of performing art forms, one of which is known as Pelegongan, commonly known as Legong dance. Pelegongan, however, also covers the instrumental repertoire which may include pieces from both the Legong and the Barong repertoire. Sadly, about halfway through the twentieth century this ancient tradition began to fade away, replaced with more modern music and dance forms, then popular with the younger generation. Mekar Bhuana feel that it is time for a revival before these art forms are lost in time forever.

Since 2002, they have been working together with local dancers to preserve rare forms of Balinese dance. They now specialize in classical Legong dance and are honoured to have some of the most talented dancers in Sanur and Denpasar as members of their association. Through ongoing practices and performances, they hope to preserve as many dances as possible from the extensive Legong repertoire. Their dancers are accompanied by our antique Pelegongan gamelan – something of a rarity in Bali these days. Their male dance forms include the mask dances such as Jauk Manis and Keras, as well as Sandaran (Telek & Jauk), Barong, Rarung and Rangda.