Kecak and fire dance

Kecak is classical balinese dance style where they use no musical instruments but only human voices. Almost a hundred men sits in a circle making the kecak sounds and the dancers performs in the center around the big light stand.  This kecak was a story from the Ramayana epic. This circle has also been seen in films like Avatar and The Fall because of the strong visual effect.

The sanghyang dedari dance followed after the kecak. In this dance two young girls (dedari = angels) does the whole performance in trance, eyes closed. In the end they are brought out of trance by the pemangku, a man who prays deside them and blesses them with holy water. In my opinion this was the most beautiful part of the evening. The girls were so serene and the contrast between the older women in simple clothes and the young girls in gold and decorativr clothes was impressive.

The last part of the dances were the sanghyang jaran dance. This fire dance were performed by a young man playing to ride on a horse (jaran = horse). First he just dance around the bonfire but if the sanghyan song leads him to the fire he will dance on it. It was very cool to see him dancing on the fire and see no sign of pain or anything.