I Nyoman Cerita (1961–2021) was a major Balinese choreographer of this generation and a teacher at Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI, Indonesian Institute of the Arts) at Denpasar. The essay that follows this introduction is his last written work and it displays his emic perspective on performing calonarang, a sacred dance drama popular in its current form since at least the nineteenth century. Its most common plot is related to an eleventh-century story of a sorceress queen of East Java. The dance drama involves trance behaviors and uses ritually blessed masks of the female and male high gods of the Balinese Hindu-Buddhist pantheon in their chthonic forms. The performance is felt to create community balance and blessing.
While the ideas Cerita shares may create difficulties for those new to Balinese arts, the article is important in that it gives a contemporary insider’s perspective on Balinese performance qua religion and insight...
