Legong Dance
is the heavenly dance of divine nymphs. Of all classical Balinese
dances, it remains the quintessence of femininity and grace. Girls from
the age of five aspire to be selected to represent the community as
Legong dancers. Connoisseurs hold the dance in highest esteem and spend
hours discussing the merits of various Legong groups. The most popular
of Legongs is the Legong Kraton, Legong of the palace. Formerly, the
dance was patronized by local rajas and held in e puri, residence of the
royal family of the village.
Dancers were
recruited from the aptest and prettiest children. Today, the trained
dancers arestill- very young; a girl of fourteen approaches the age of
retirement as a Legong performer. The highly stylized Legong Kraton
enacts a drama of a most purified and abstract kind. The story is
performed ' by three dancers: the condong, a female attendant of the
court, and two identically dressed legongs (dancers),who adopt the roles
of royal persons. Originally, a storyteller sat with the orchestra and
chanted the narrative, but even this has been refined away in many
Legongs.
Only the
suggestive themes of the magnificent gamelan gong (the full Balinese
orchestra) and the minds of the audience conjure up imaginary changes of
scene in the underlying play of Legong Kraton. The story derives from
the history of East Java in the 1 2th and 1 3th centuries: when on a
journey the King of Lasem finds the maiden Rangkesari lost in the
forest. He takes her home and locks her in a house of stone.
Rangkesari's brother, the Prince of Daha, learns of her captivity and
threatens war unless she is set free.
Rangkesari begs
her captor to avoid war by giving her liberty, but the king prefers to
fight. On his way to battle, he is met by a bird of ill omen that
predicts his death. In the fight that ensues he is killed. The dance
dramatizes the farewells of the King of Laserm as he departs for the
battlefield and his ominous encounter with the bird. It opens with an
introductory solo by the condong. She moves with infinite suppleness,
dipping to the ground and rising in one unbroken motion, hertorso poised
in an arch with elbows and head held high, while fingers dance circles
around her wrists.
Slowly, her eyes
focus on two fans laid before her and, taking them, she turns to meet
the arrival of the legongs. The tiny dancers glitter and dazzle. Bound
from head to foot in gold brocade, it is a wonder the legongs can move
with such fervent agitation. Yet, the tight composure of the body,
balanced by dynamic directive gestures-the flash of an eye, the tremble
of two fingers blend in unerring precision. After as hort dance, the
condong retires, leaving the legongs to pantomime the story within the
dance.
Like a
controlled line of an exquisite drawl ing, the dancers flowfrom one
identity intothel next without disrupting the harmony of t dance. They
may enter as the double image one' character, their movements marked
tight synchronization and rhythmical verve Then they may split, each
enacting a separate role, and come together in complementary halves to
form a unified pattern, as in the plan ful love scene in which they "rub
noses The King of Lasem bids farewell to his queen, and takes leave of
Rangkesari.
She repels his
advances by beating him with he fananddepartsin anger. lt is then the
condong reappears as a bird with wild eyes fixed upon the king. Beating
its golden wings to a strange flutter of cymbals, it attacks the king in
a vain attempt to dissuade him from war. The ancient narrative relates:
". .. a black bird came flying out of the northeast and swooped down
upor the king, who saw it and said, 'Raven, hoi come you to swoop down
on me? In spiteo; all, 1 shall go out and fight. This 1 shall do, oh
raven!... With the king's decision understood the dance may end; or the
other legong may return on stage as his prime minister, and shimmering
unison, they whirl thefinal stepsi: war.
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