Every June, Bali holds a month long Arts Festival that celebrates Balinese art and culture. First held in 1979, this big event has become Indonesia’s longest-running arts festival. Traditional Balinese artists – dancers, musical groups ( gamelan), puppet shows, parades of Gods and monsters, weavers, basket makers, furniture makers, and others, are all out in full force^. The festival also features competitions, seminars, and exhibitions of art, handicrafts and authentic Bali … well, everything authentic in Bali. You do not have to tour Bali. Go to the festival and Bali comes to you! The opening section below focuses on gamelan, the native music that is a festival showcase. This traditional gamelan ”orchestral” music is only vaguely known to a lot of bules (Bali word for Caucasian foreigners).

Gamelan: The Ethereal Music of Heaven (Seriously)

June, 2022 by Made Victor (the Bali name of writer Zephyr Carlyle)The reader thinks the writer is kidding about the heavenly part? Gamelan is the music he wants to hear in the after life. Try this:

The full gamelan orchestra consists of ten different instruments. Upper Right: The full orchestra at a wayan puppet theater. The wayan puppets (flat images on sticks of Gods and monsters) are visible on left and right of background. These instruments are different. The gamelan orchestra includes the “banana shaped idiophone” (a curved xylophone.) Lower Right: An instrument called the ”kepul”, just one of the ten.

Note: these instruments on Right are ”modern” gamelan instruments as the instruments contain new-fangled, modern materials — like metal. The truly authentic gamelan assortment go way back when. The instruments were made only of bamboo, reeds, leather and who knows — maybe something like dried coconut bark. See bamboo instruments below:

**Above**: How traditional is it for the bamboo gamelan player to have a wrist watch?

**Above:** More authentic, real McCoy traditional gamelan instruments – no metal, no adornments

**Above:** Wayan puppets in background-sort of a sacred Punch and Judy

**Above:** Now this **kepul** is a real musical instrument. Notice all the metal and shiny doo dads. Traditional, sure. Truly ancient traditional? Not as much as bamboo instruments on **LEFT**

**Above:** Gamelan orchestra performance as part of evening spectacular show attended by this writer. See section below on festival entertainment.

Traditional wooden gamelans for sale at the festival

The Fair Experience

Surely, the reader has attended a County Fair; maybe a State or Province Expo; or perhaps the National Show? These events are held all over the world, with some tweaks in form or format. The Bali Festival is up there with the best. The Festival is like a cross between a State Fair (in Southern California: think Del Mar Fair) and a well-organized street festival. The street festival part comes in as the Bali event had only a few carnival rides and no fairway with games to win huge, stuffed animals. Let’s compare and contrast and see how the Bali Festival stacks up the others festivals. See if this festival matches the reader’s local county or state fair:

The Crowds and Fairways

The writer attended the festival five, count ’em five, times in its month long 2022 run. He stuck out like a sore thumb. Why? Because the writer saw, seriously, a couple thousand fairgoers, easy. However, cumulatively, he counted only twelve bules (White foreigners) among the happy hordes. Twelve. Why were so few foreign bules in attendance? Pandemic restrictions have lifted. Bali is now chock-a-block full of foreign tourists and surfers – but they were not out in force at the festival. Clearly the Festival is authentico, not a tourist trap, and has a lot of offer both locals and visitors. The festival is held in Denpasar, Bali’s capital city, an easy and convenient location. IF the reader comes to Bali in early summer — do not miss this event. The festival is free to attend, and has plenty of free parking. Free.

The crowd was thick during the evening fun. The festival ended at 10:00 pm nightly.

Look at the crowds: Notice any bules (White foreigners?) This writer saw none either. Actually the writer counted a total of twelve bules during his five festival visits.

The Entertainment

This picture is the upper level promenade at the combo edifice — The Hindu Temple/Performance Arts Center where the spectacular main event is held every evening:

The pictures below were the night spectacular at the Arts Center when the writer was in attendance. The events include the gamelan concert, which is pictured above in the intro section of this article. Perhaps this spectacular could best be described as sacred entertainment.

The Food

There was food aplenty at the festival, but not a deep fried twinky; no chocolate covered bacon; no $25 beer in a glass cowboy boot – none of the standard issue fare was in sight But there were plenty of Bali treats – for example, squid-a-rama with squid (cumi-cumi) in every shape, size and type of frying. The squid paired nicely with the ever popular, baby-crab barbecue fest. Sigh. The oceans weep. More broadly, the festival was chock-a-block full of Bali food, both traditional cuisine and Bali’s own type of fair good. The cuisine included fire and ice:

Top: Traditional Bali pancakes (lak-lak). The batter is poured into cast iron molds that sit atop these wood burning stovetops. Served with shredded coconut and palm syrup.

Left: Definitely fair food only. Dry ice is sprayed over breakfast-cereal material that is formed into small hollow tubes (like penne pasta but bigger). The dry ice goes into the ovals. The whole bowl gives off dry ice fumes. When a person bites down on a cereal tube; a small blast of dry ice fumes is released directly into the mouth. The person breathes out the frozen smoke as if he was smoking a cigarette. Every year, a few festival goers get freeze burns on tongue or cheek and severe cases require medical attention. This writer had to discard half a bowl worth of the stuff as he was beginning to get freezer burns in his mouth.

The Shopping

There is not a whole lot of standard fair goods and souvenirs. However the offered merch is unbelievable display of any type of artisan merchandise: handcrafted, hand woven, traditional, tribal and the how-many-hours-did-it-take types of arts and crafts.

The basket weaver stepped away for a few minutes and asked the writer if he would mind the store. Only in Bali. And the writer sold two baskets!

Readers — Not convinced that these artisanal trinkets are unique or authentico? Not wowed yet? Try these on for size:

Bali Wayang Shadow Puppets — The famous wayan puppetry is associated with nearby Java Island, but Bali has its own, smaller Wayang tradition.

Lontar – Ancient, pressed palm-leaf manuscripts bindled together to create picture books or manuscripts. The lontar library covers sacred topics such as epic battles, astrology, astronomy, religious beliefs, healing, history and the like. The construction of lontar manuscripts from palm leaves has some similarities to ancient Egyptian making papyrus paper. Lontar looks like very thin balsa wood and the ”leaves” are strung together so they collapse and fold like a venetian blind. **Above**: lontar from this writers “private collection” — meaning he bought lontar at the festival. See **below** for a very old, hoary lontar Note: Lontar is an ancient art and manuscript form to transmit knowledge, wisdom and symbolism; mostly sacred in nature. There are very few lontar makers working the craft. Lontar is a dying art and sacred science.

Opening and Closing

The opening and closing events, like all county fairs, are filled with parades and pagentry. In addtion, all festival goers are greeting by the beautiful Bali excess of exuberant decoration. Right: Here is just one of the entry pieces that grabs the shoppers attention as they walk in the door. The writer’s date smack dab in the middle provides both the ”Where’s Waldo” effect and gives a perspective on size. Below: No festival is complete without opening and closing parade. The parades whip up enthusiasm and offers a glimpse of all the spectatulars within. The Bali Festival parade is no slouch and the night parade is like the Disneyland Electric Light Parade. Immediately Below: the Grand Parade by daytime. Far Below: one float in the Night Parade.

Told you. The Electric Light Parade of Disneyland has crashed upon the shores of the Indo-Pacific. Or is this a small world after all?

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