Situated in central Bali on the slopes of a volcano, the village of Sebatu (population 1,800) has enjoyed a special fortune. It was in 1969 that the musicians of Sebatu, then isolated in the mountains, were noticed for their highly poetic style, at once virtuoso and singularly delicate. For 5 decades now, Sebatu's reputation has been built on their European tours, particularly in France, where they have performed in prestigious venues such as the Palais Garnier and, at Pierre Boulez's invitation, the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Jaya Semara Wati, the young group from the mountain village of Sebatu, is a brilliant successor to its elder group Carmanwati, who has already toured extensively in France. Like most traditional Balinese troupes, Jaya Semara Wati has no professional performers, because music, dance and theatre are above all civic duties performed during the countless sumptuous Hindu-Balinese rituals. Of the 40 members of this group, including a few old hands who have already performed in France, 67% are farmers, 18% shopkeepers and 5% sculptors, with the remaining 10% working in tourism.

The show put on by the Jaya Semara Wati de Sebatu troupe is representative of the rich range of Balinese styles due to their different origins and functions: ritual collective dances, specific to each village; their evolution into virtuoso choreographies for seasoned soloists; the Kebyar, a musical and choreographic revolution (from 1915); the aristocratic traditions of narrative ballet and dance theatre drawn from Indian and Hindu-Javanese literature, in particular the tantric traditions of the sacred masks associated with the cemetery and the jungle. Consisted in 2 parts, the show first presents highlights of Balinese music and dance, followed by a new narrative performance, in 7 short chatpers articulating learned traditions of music, dance, masks, vocal arts and choreographed chorus. Jaya Semara Wati's show, again with gamelan, presents the same balance of pure music and dance pieces and dramatic traditions of dance, masks and voice. At the Exposition Coloniale in Vincennes in 1931, the Balinese show so impressed Antonin Artaud that it inspired his most famous work, Le théâtre et son double.

Indonesia has at least a hundred different types of instrumental ensemble known as gamelan, originally (and still mainly) based on metal and/or bamboo percussion. Their common denominator is the concept of the "collective instrument", which is the exact opposite of the orchestra of individual instruments. The instrument is the entire gamelan, as if a piano were being played by dozens of musicians armed with hammers. This entity is indissoluble because each gamelan has its own tuning, "its own voice". In Balinese style, the musicians share the notes to weave the melodic lines at dizzying speeds. These specificities are representative of a society where the collective comes first and the ego is enemy number one.

 

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