Bali comes to Bab Makina

Blessing the musicians

From the Indonesian island of Bali in East Java to Fez in Morocco is a huge distance and yet the cultural offering was a perfect fit for the Fez Sacred Music Festival. For those antipodeans in the audience the Gamelan musical style with its use of gongs and percussion is very familiar, but for many of the Moroccans in the audience it was clearly demanding, though more accessible than the superb Vietnamese performance the day before.

The remarkable Gamelan hammer

The Balinese believe that music, theatre and dance are all the same thing and so it was no surprise that when the first dance took place the dancer performed as if her body was a musical instrument, every gesture in perfect time with the percussion.

The dancer, Ni Putu Putri Setyari, was superb, as was the costume and makeup. The group, Panyi Pusaka Budaya is fortunate to have as their director I Made Djimat, a disciple of the greatest Balinese dancer of the modern era, I Made Mario. Another wonderful performance.

Ni Putu Putri Setyari

photographs: Sandy McCutcheon

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