New Year’s Eve Performance 2014: Bali Taksu

Dance and music collaboration by Polosseni Group at Nusa Dua, Bali

On New Year’s Eve Performance 2014, the Polosseni group was becoming an international group in which dancers from USA and Mexico were joined in it. The number of artists who performed were 12, consisted of 8 Balinese artists and 4 foreign artists. The music instruments that used by the group were Piano, Balinese Flutes, Gong, Kajar, Kendang, Balinese Gamelan, and Javanese Gamelan.

kadek ferry ( f ) on Piano

mayumi inouye ( m ) usually dances with dancers of Balinese dance, but this time for her first time she danced with professional contemporary dancers. They were Bonnie Simoa from the United States and José Navarrete from Mexico.

We met them for the first time on December 20, 2013. For the contemporary dance the Polosseni group has prepared a medley of 3 songs as the dance accompaniment. On the first rehearsal, while listened to the accompaniment the dancers began to choreograph in accordance with the rhythm, their feeling, and their imagination. At the beginning of this rehearsal Mr. Jose Maria a friend who was also present at the rehearsal directed and gave us some ideas of the dance.

First rehearsal

Sure it was hard for m , choreographed contemporary dance movements, although she danced in the accompaniment of modern music, it would tend to be Balinese dance movements. So she could only imitated and followed Bonnie and José. She kept on eye to all of their movements in order to not to hit them when dancing, hahaha. But they all did it very well!

“oh, how difficult dancing contemporary dance,,,”
Third rehearsal

The schedule of rehearsal was quite limited, in a 7 time scheduled there were only 2 times rehearsed in a complete band and artists. Its all because ahead to the Christmas and New Year many Balinese artists were busy performing with their own group in some places. In addition, in these weeks there were also some ritual activities in Bali and most of them been involved in some performances at the Temples.

Few days before the New Year’s Eve performance, the dancers designed the costumes in their own favorite design/ shape. Because they used the same fabric and motif this made the costumes in a unity. Simple and they fit to each character of dancers.

The costumes

Trying the costume on rehearsal

On the evening performance, Polosseni group performed in two different sessions. The first session was music and dance collaboration, their repertory. In this session two dances were performed. They were Nelayan (fishermen dance) and Semara Ratih Dance (the story Kala Rau) by dancers I Made Djimat and mayumi inouye ( m ).

At the next session was the performance of Contemporary Dance by Polosseni international group with all their dancers. Bonnie Simoa, José Navarrete, I Made Djimat, and m .

“New Year’s Eve 2014 Performance” was not only performing music collaboration and contemporary dance, some Balinese dances were also performed. Two kinds of a classical Legong dance in the accompaniment of gamelan Semara Pegulingan, JogCak (gamelan Jegog collaborated with Kecak), Baleganjur, Barong Landung, Barong Ket, and Joged Bumbung. This was a long performance, started from 18:00 until 24:30.

The performance was successful. All artists did a great performances.
How a new and wonderful experience!

Happy New Year!

Thank You! Matur Suksma!
Happy New Year 2014!