Bali Day 2: Barong & Keris Dance

We met up with Dewa earlier than planned at 8:15a. He came early … we were ready. Seemed like a good idea to get the show on the road.

We debarked Regatta amidst a queue of people leaving the ship today … their cruise vacation at an end. With only 130 disembarking (to be replaced by 135 passengers later in the day) — and Celebrity Millennium not yet disembarking its passengers — it was easy enough to get through the terminal.

As we did yesterday, we started our outing with an ATM stop. Then, Dewa drove us to the performance center in Kuta to see the Barong Keris Dance.

Arriving at the venue early gave us a chance to take photos and play with the musical instruments. One of the musicians, an older gentleman who plays the flute, stopped to chat with us and even gave us a private concert.

The gist of the “dance story” — one that is traditionally performed in temples — is the eternal fight between good and evil … with good winning in the end. Of course. In this instance, good is represented by Barong and evil is represented by Rangda. Thankfully, we were provided with a brief description of the five-act dance, so we could follow along.

The performance was interesting and the costumes were elaborate. How some of the characters endured the heat under the heavy, multi-layered costumes is beyond me. But they did … and were still smiling when at least some of them congregated on the stage for a photo op following the performance.Read more