Laughter

Yesterday was the second day of the 3 day music festival in the village. The morning performances were teenagers in groups of 3-5 girls, decked out like western hip chics doing hip hop routines to Balinese and western music. They were really quite good, even though it was strange to see how much they strive to look western; white foundation cream on their faces, white tinted pantyhose with their short short cut off jeans and tennis shoes…but once they started to perform it was clear that their strong background in classical Balinese dance at some point in their lives, is what made up most of the dance movements….just with western clothes and to pop music! They all watch cable television music and fashion channels and see all of the clips of the popular music stars and are good at imitating it.

In the evening the performances began with a wonderful "perry como" type 21 year old that was born in the village, and has a magnificent voice and stage presence, and was singing Balinese love songs. The mayor, who previously worked in tourism, enjoys getting the foreigners at the festival, to join in and again, approached me suddenly while the man was singing and invited me to come dance on stage with him. My rule of thumb in life is to say "yes" to everything, so, I stood up and together we began wiggling our tushes and dancing up to the stage across the grassy area beneath the steps to the stage. He put his arm around me, so I put my arm around him. He is a big heavy man, with a childlike nature, and the crowd was enjoying it. And just as I was about to start up the 5 steps to join the singer on stage, I felt a draft and I looked down and saw that the knot I had tied on my waist with my sarong had opened up. My sarong was now hanging from my left hip…revealing my grey bikini underpants and bare legs!

I was in shock, and together with that was laughing hysterically from the absurdity of it all; thousands of people standing around us for the performance, the music is going, and I'm supposed to be dancing, but instead am half naked. I looked at the mayor, who turned his glance the other way out of embarrassment, or respect, I looked up at the singer for a clue what do I do now, and he too glanced the other way. So I figured it's up to me, just pick up the sarong from the ground, find any 2 ends and just get myself dressed so we can continue dancing! Of course everyone was roaring with laughter but I was determined "the show must go on!" and tied 2 ends, that didn't really match, but at least covered part of my lower body, and meanwhile the singer came down to us and we danced for the audience. It was fun and playful . The mayor, seeing that he had a good thing going, with me keeping the crowds entertained went over to one of the older men, my age, a kind of Krishnamurti tall serious type, sitting in the front row, and forced him to come dance with me. I don't think he realized that the man and I were friends, so it wasn't so traumatic for him to join me, even though he tried to refuse. He blessed me with palms touching in a prayer mode and we wiggled for a minute and then he was ready to stop. He tried to shake my hand in gratitude, but I took both of his and encouraged him to try a bit of western style couples dancing…but that was already too much for his shyness. Meanwhile the singer had some other tourists dancing with him and I sat back down in the front row. Lots of laughs and good fun.

Next was beautiful classical Balinese dancing by lovely women, accompanied by the live mens' gamelon orchestra. It is very interesting to watch. So different from western style, almost as if they are marionette puppets, facing forward, with the arms held at shoulder height and moving and the hips and legs making sensuous movements. Every now and then the head, neck or eyes are moving too. I tried to figure out what it is all about. These are dances past on from generation to generation and show, I think, the inner life of emotions and the outward resulting actions. This was followed by a combination of about 30 men chanting and moving, called Kecak, which accompanied some actors performing one of the ramamyan tales. Much of the performances are of a storytelling nature, with the storyteller reciting into the microphone the drama with great talent, and the actors who do a kind of pantomime with exotic costumes and dance movements. I wondered whether this is all part of the childlike atmosphere that is here, with the villagers invited to listen to stories as entertainment…like when we tell children stories. And while all of this is going on, people are talking, laughing, moving about, children are sitting right on stage with the actors, even two or three of them just walking up the steps to sit on stage because they feel like it and blocking the view of all the crowd, and no one feels a need to have them sit down, or move or anything…so interesting…

This was followed by 3 stand-up comedy routines. Even though I couldn't understand a word of it, it is fascinating to watch thousands of people, from children to old age, crowded together, standing, sitting on the ground, making a huge half circle around some 200 chairs for the privileged few, all laughing! The same humorous contents touched all of them. All of them laughing and laughing for hours. I could make out that some was with sexual overtones, like the very big sensuous buttocks of one of the women comedians, wiggling to the crowds, or when she invited one of the men in the crowd to join her on stage and he was pretending to make a pass at her, and she shoved him up against a wall and pantomimed having sex standing up with him. i guess no "PG" here! Other actions that got roars of laughter were when one male comedian that looked quite grotesque, was imitating the women dancers that had previously performed the famous classical love bird dance. So as he imitated her staccato head and eye movements which typify classical Balinese dance, he just exaggerated them and made them senseless, instead of reflecting an inner emotional turmoil of the usual epic tale. Naturally all of the quick tempo conversation was incomprehensible, but touched on politics, tourists, communication, sex…

It was almost midnight, and the crowds were still laughing for hours, and I decided to go back home. Ah yes, in between all of this, the young singer performed again, and tried to get people from the crowd to come dance with him, but all refused. Spotting me and knowing he had a sure win he invited me, speaking English into the microphone "to come dance with me". I had already tightened the knot on my sarong, "just in case", even though I had no way to get up and wrap it around me properly, and so I joined him again, as he sang me a Balinese love song and I danced middle eastern style next to him. So…there are now thousands of villagers that "know" me, as became apparent when I walked home at night and people beeped and smiled and when i went to the market at 5 this morning and one of the vendors that I had never bought from started imitating me dancing as she wrapped up my fish, and another that I never knew, offered me a ride, and others standing next to me in line for flowers made small talk about where do I come from, etc. The housekeeper saw me this morning and started dancing middle eastern style as she looked behind her seeing an imaginary sarong falling on the ground. I laughed and asked how she enjoyed the evening. She said she wasn't there…but "had heard" about it…this was 7:30 in the morning! So…a whole village had lots of laughs, and a good time was had by all, put on for free for one and all by the municipality….sure seems like a nice way to keep a village happy.