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Trance and Dance in Bali
Documentary
Trance and Dance in Bali is a short documentary film shot by the anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson during their research on Bali in the 1930s.
It shows female dancers with sharp kris daggers dancing in trance, eventually stabbing themselves without injury. The film was not released until 1951.
The film describes and illustrates a single performance of the Kris Dance, a ritual dance on the Indonesian island of Bali. The dance portrays the struggle of good, in the shape of dragons, against evil, in the shape of masked Tjalonarang witches. The dancers are young women. They hold kris daggers.
They are seen to enter trance, one at a time, and are revived from it. While in trance, they dance ecstatically and stab themselves with their daggers, remaining unharmed. The film opens and closes with displayed blocks of text, summarizing the dance's story.
No sounds were recorded at the time of filming. The film's soundtrack consists of narration by Mead, and Balinese music recorded elsewhere, possibly by Bateson and Mead's collaborators, the Canadian musicologist Colin McPhee, and the scholar of Balinese dance Katherane Mershon. (Wikipedia)
Movie Info
Written: Margaret Mead
Narrated: Margaret Mead
Cinematography: Gregory Bateson
Filmed: 1937
Realease date: 1951
Country of origin: United States
Language: English
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