Global Traveler

Balinese Culture

Bali is very interesting to visit, even Bali is a tropical island that you should visit before you die. You can find these recommendations in a book titled "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" by Patricia Schultz. This book has become a best seller all over the worldPerhaps you need to read this book before your holiday in Bali.

Bali - The Last Paradise - has extraordinarily vivid beauty terraced rice paddies seemingly rising up to the sky, silhouetted palms and still-live volcanoes and volcanic lakes contrast with lovely beaches and lagoons. Bali's temples, carved statues and colorful art are evidence of a thriving culture which maintains its freshness and simplicity in digital age.

Bali, covering just over 2,000 square miles in area, has a population of nearly four million inhabitants. The Balinese people are known for their gentleness, humor and creativity. Dance and drama are a united form in Bali and do not occupy separate spheres as in the West. The Baris dance, for example, is full of martial expression and gives vent to mainly virtues and preoccupations. 
Legong Dance. Image: tunasmekar.org

The Legong, is highly refined and feminine and appreciated on a purely aesthetic level. The dance-pantomime known as Legong is the best loved of  classical dances in Bali.

The Kebyar is a solo performance of brilliant showmanship. Fun and flirtation are the soul of the janger and joged, and a wide range of historical and mythic epics find expression in the topeng masked dramas and wayang shadow puppet plays.
Barong Dance. Image: balibesttrip.com

The gamelan, a percussion orchestra made up primarily of metallophones, numerous suspended gongs and many types of cymbals, is an indispensable part of Balinese creative life. Most villages have one or two gamelans orchestras, and the strange music with its beauty can be heard througout the island almost every evening. The bamboo flute is used as a lead for the melody.
If you visit Bali, do not forget to see Barong Dance - Bali's most powerful drama revolves around the confrontation and clash of two mythical creatures, Barong and Rangda, personifications of the forces of good and evil.

You also can see the dances that involve trance, however, lie at the core of the Balinese. Here contact is made with the unseen, and fragile humans become heroic as they enter into the world beyond.

For more than 100 years tourists have been coming to Bali to play and relax, to learn and to share in the special magic of the island. Tri Hita Karana is a Sanskrit term that literally means “three paths to peacefulness and prosperity”, and is about harmonious relationships with God, fellow human beings and the environment. The concept of stability implied in this term, has long been at the heart of Balinese philosophy and daily practice, representing the delicate balance between the physical and spiritual worlds.

Let's go to Bali and discover the magic of Bali.

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