Kecak Dance Performance at Uluwatu Temple
Ira, Hanoman and Neni
Our friend from college, Neni, came over to Bali last weekend. While thinking of the places to visit, watching Kecak dance was the first idea popped up, since I had been longing to do it. There were a lot of place to choose, but GWK and Uluwatu were the ones close by Kuta. Based on a friend recommendation and the stunning picture of the dance, we choose Uluwatu.
Kecak (pronounced: /‘ke.t?ak/, roughly “KEH-chahk”, alternate spellings: Ketjak and Ketjack), a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and is performed primarily by men. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting “cak” and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where the monkey-like Vanara helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. More from Wikipedia
Even though, I have not experienced this, visitor should be careful with their belongings while visiting Uluwatu. It has always been known for the monkeys which sometimes bother the visitors by taking shiny items e.g. glasses, earing or necklace. Most of the them stay on the paths to the temple. However, I don’t think they are that bad, perhaps they are just hungry.
On Saturday, from Padang-padang beach we went to Uluwatu. The ticket was IDR 50000 /person, IDR 3000 for a cloth belt and IDR 1000 for bike parking fee. We came early to make sure we get the tickets and good seat location. The guide of the place was very friendly. She told that the performance had been often crowded and sometimes they ran out of ticket.
The weather is usually quite hot, so for those who don’t want to get burnt by sunlight, you might want to use sunblock or perhaps wear a hat or bring an umbrella. For us, it was not that big of deal though, if other visitors were busy taking pictures of the view, we were taking ours he..he..he..
The performance was started around 6pm, it was very crowded that some of the people sat on the floor.
Shinta
A nice sunset view during the performance.
Rama was played by a woman, perhaps it was difficult for man to make that special hand and eye movement.
Fajar, Hanoman and Gia
Taking pictures with the performer.
During the performance, a camera with good shot in low light condition with high speed shooting would be great. I didn’t get the best out of mine, some of the pictures didn’t had much detail and blurry. Anyway, ovrerall I was quite pleased with the performance. I was glad that the performer also interacted with the audience and they were funny especially for kids although the younger ones might be frighten by the costume. I didn’t get much of ”the spirit aura” which I had been told but it was nice. Perhaps I would add the chanting to my music playlist he..he.. Finally in choosing your seat location you might want to test the view with your camera first, perhaps the entrance gate would be better positioned in the middle part of the picture.
Last time we went to Bali, we planed to enjoy “kecak dance” at GWK, but unfortunately, the rain falled down.. so the performances was canceled.
hmm, your story makes me re-plan my journey to Bali to see the kecak’s performances…
A beautiful sunset there.. but it was kind of cloudy at the horizon, wasn’t it?? Ah.. unfortunately for you that the Shinta photo kind of blurred. Anyway what kind of camera did you use Tus??
That’s unfortunate. Hmm my suggestion is that you watch the performance at Uluwatu, a friend of main said it was better than the one in GWK.
Yeah, it was. Yes, it is blurry, there are other pictures of Shinta, but I just like her pose in this picture.I used fuji finefix 5800. My camera was slower in taking picture than usual although I had increased the shutter speed, perhaps it was also because the memory card was almost full from previous two places. Since you have been taking picture much longer than me, any suggestions Di?
Finepix S5800 isn’t it??
From my experience, the memory card won’t affect the shutter speed, it will only affect the lag between two shots.
You can’t adjust the aperture manually right?? So you should try increase the ISO and use flash. But experiment it first, because maybe you won’t be satisfied with the result. A tripod would be good, but I guess it would not help a lot and setting up a tripod in this kind of event will be a pain in your a*s
Anyway check this link. Personally, the first is the hardest thing to learn. And of course you will not want the automatic setting for this kind of photo, set everything you can manually.
the camera support manual setting of aperture but i have not really tried it. Hmm I perhaps I’ll experiment with the manual setting this weekend. Thanks for the info, Di (Y)
thank you for he information.. (Y)
i mean, thank you for the information…
aku belum pernah ke bali, mungkin kalau udha nikah mahu ke bali, honeymoon, rencananya tahun depan nikah.
mikael sirait
sumatera utara
nice post,