April 3, 2021

Barong Gajah Dance Bali

Barong Gajah as a variant of Barong Dance is a sacred art performance. Barong is believed to be a mythological creature who has supernatural powers and always provides protection to the community.

The word "gajah" means elephant. This barong has a face or "tapel" resembles an elephant and is gray in color, complete with a trunk, wide ear, ivory, and a movable lower jaw.



While the body parts are decorated with intricate skin carvings, crown, plenty of tiny mirrors, and thick hair from certain plant fibers.

Barong Gajah dance performance is rarely found. Even so, this hereditary tradition is still carried out by the people of Tabanan, Badung, Gianyar, and Bangli Regencies.

This sacred dance performance is usually done at certain times which are considered important (on Galungan and Kuningan holidays). This is done through the Ngelawang ritual, where the barong is paraded in a procession around the banjar environment or village, door to door.

The Barong Gajah dance performance is done as a ritual to repelling reinforcements (tetulak bala) from the plague that attacks, and asking for safety of the villagers. This barong is performed by two dancers and accompanied by a Batel or Tetamburan gamelan orchestra.


Reference

  1. google.co.id
  2. wikipedia.org _ Barong (mythology) _ on April 2, 2021
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barong_(mythology)

Searches on this site related to Tari Barong Gajah Bali:

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