A troupe of Balinese dancers, musicians, actors and scholars will demonstrate the "Power and Performance" during a two-day residency at Yale.

Performances and workshops will explore 'theatrical bodies' in contemporary Bali

The music, dance and theater of Bali will be showcased on campus when a professional Balinese troupe visits for a two-day arts residency during which they will perform and teach.

The five performers who will visit Yale are nationally recognized in Indonesia and regularly perform in international venues. They will present performances, lecture demonstrations and workshops during their stay on Monday and Tuesday, April 17 and 18.

All of the offerings during the two-day event, titled "Power and Performance: Theatrical Bodies and Persons in Contemporary Bali," are free and open to the public. The events are co-sponsored by the Departments of Music and Comparative Literature, the Asian American Cultural Council, the Council on Southeast Asia, Jonathan Edwards College, the President's Office and the Theater Studies Program.

The five performers in the visiting troupe -- I Wayan Dibia, Ni Nyoman Manik Suryani, Ni Made Wiratini, Ni Made Pujawati and I Nengah Susila -- are trained dancers, musicians, actors and scholars who teach at institutions in Indonesia and abroad. During their residency at Yale, they will focus on three Balinese genres: Arja theater, classical dance and Kecak -- the famous Balinese Ramayana monkey chanting.

Arja is a form of semi-improvisational theater, similar to Commedia dell'Arte, in which dancers and actors take a short narrative and spin it into a two- or three-hour performance. Stock characters, such as spirited maids, cagey elderly men, wise sages and grumpy old women, develop the story. When Arja is performed in Bali, clowns translate the text into everyday Balinese.

On Monday, the troupe will offer a lecture-demonstration titled "From Page to Stage: Improvisation and Narrative in Balinese Arja Theater" 2:30-3:45 p.m. in Rm. 208 of William L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St. At 7:30 p.m. that evening, it will present a full-length dance and theater performance, titled "Legong and Arja: Balinese Dance and Theatre in Performance," in the auditorium of Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. The Arja segment will be performed in Balinese with English translation.

The following day, 9:30-11:20 a.m., the troupe will present a lecture-demonstration on "Gender and Embodiment in Balinese Performance" in an ethnomusicology class taught by Sarah Weiss, an assistant professor of ethnomusicology in the Department of Music, who organized the Balinese events. In this presentation, performers will convey gender identity -- not necessarily their own -- through the stylized movement of Balinese dance.

Troupe members will teach a sound and movement workshop in Kecak on Tuesday afternoon 2-4:30 p.m. in the Theater Studies Program ballroom at 220 York St. Guests will learn how to perform the interlocking patterns of monkey chanting and try out some basic Balinese dance steps.

Workshop participants and their teachers will perform an impromptu demonstration of Kecak at 5 p.m. in the common room of Jonathan Edwards College, 68 High St.

A specialist in Indonesian and Southeast Asian performance, Weiss says she is committed to raising the profile of performance from around the world on the Yale campus. She also hopes to begin a Javanese gamelan ensemble at Yale in the fall semester.

For more information, contact Weiss at s.weiss@yale.edu or visit the website for the two-day series of events at www.yale.edu/seas/BalineseDance.htm.

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