Kecak dance is often called “Ramayana Monkey Chant” for the tourists is a dance in a relatively new form of drama but the show has become a very popular / famous and has become a must watch show for tourists both domestic and abroad. Bali dance scenes kecak been promoted in several postcard, tourist guide and others. This dance is usually performed at the Uluwatu temple.
Kecak dance was originally a trance ritual accompanied by male chorus. German painter and musician Walter Spies became deeply interested in the ritual while living in Bali in the 1930s and worked to recreate it into a drama, based on the Hindu Ramayana and including dance, intended to be presented to Western tourist audiences. This transformation is an example of what James Clifford describes as part of the “modern art-culture system” in which, “the West or the central power adopts, transforms, and consumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements, while making ‘art’ which was once embedded in the culture as a whole, into a separate entity.” Spies worked with Wayan Limbak and Limbak popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels have helped to make the Kecak famous throughout the world.
Performer, choreographer, and scholar I Wayan Dibia cites a contrasting theory that the Balinese were already developing the form when Spies arrived on the island. For example, well-known dancer I Limbak had incorporated Baris movements into the cak leader role during the 1920s. “Spies liked this innovation,” and it suggested that Limbak, “devise a spectacle based on the Ramayana,” accompanied by cak chorus rather than gamelan, as would have been usual.
As a Kecak performance is supported by some very important factors, more is more in this kecak show presents dance as an introduction to the story, of course the music is vital to accompany the dancers. But in the Kecak music sounds generated from a combination of peak, amounting to around 50 to 70 people it will make music akapela, a leader will act as the initial tone bring longer act as a stressors in charge of high pressure or low tone of an act as a solo singer, and another will act as the mastermind who brought the story-line. Kecak dance dancer in the movement should not follow the standard are standard dance accompanied by gamelan. So in this kecak dance dancer’s body movements more relaxed because the main priority is the story and voice synthesis.
