Singing and Chanting

I really enjoyed Wednesday's class when we got to learn those Balinese songs. I've always been one for singing and for learning other languages so it was really cool to be able to learn some words in another language, even if we haven't been taught yet what they mean. Learning by imitation is a pretty powerful thing and it makes me feel like we are learning it the same way that local balinese people would, through the practice of oral tradition. The energy in the room was incredible when we all were trying so hard to memorize the language. From what I have gathered from contextual clues is that they song is some kind of prayer to the gods from the Ramayana. It was also cool when Guru sung that song while we tried to dance out our characters. What was really interesting about that particular part of class was talking about the different hand positions we should have for different characters. This goes a lot in line with what I discovered last week while we watched the video about the role that gestures can have in telling the story. The whimisical fingers of Rama vs. the more pointed ones for his brother subtily hint to those watching about the divine nature of Rama.

On another note, I had some real difficulties learning the new Bharatanatyam dances this week. Especially putting the hand gestures with the dance. Sometimes when I have a few seconds I make half movements to practice the order, but I think doing the the whole movements somewhere else would be more beneficial. I guess I must now be on a new quest to find such a place!

Ramayana Video Performance

The performance we watched on Wednesday was a beautiful blur of color, movement, and sound. While the faces of the performers were covered in masks and heavy makeup, their attention to facial expression and movement allowed them not only to act out the story, but also allowed us, as the audience, to think their thoughts, feel their emotions, and live their adventure. In particular, the dancer who played Ravana was great about capturing the audiences attention to his feelings. While the mask was in the way of his face, his use of gestures, the strength of the sound he made while dancing, and his speed allowed us to sense his strength of hatred for Rama and his love for Sita. Hopefully our dancing community will be able to capture our audience in the same way during our performance of the same story.