The Origins of the Kecak Dance

You can’t end your visit to Bali without having seen one of the spectacular and enthralling performances of the Kecak Dance, a ritual dance born in the 1930s through the collaboration of Balinese dancer Wayan Limbak and German painter Walter Spies. Fascinated by the Sanghyang Dance, in which participants are possessed by a spirit and dance entranced, they created the Kecak Dance, which, then, evolved over the years into an outright theatrical piece known on the international level, thanks to tours organised by Wayan Limbak in many parts of the world. Hundreds of dancers perform in this mystic spectacle which tells the revisited story of Ramayana, the very famous Indian epic poem that celebrates the boldness of the warrior Rama in saving his kidnapped wife. There is no music, but a chorus of dancers (gamelan suara), in a circle, bare-chested, chanting continually in unison the word cak (from this comes the name Kecak) while harmoniously stomping their feet on the ground, their eyes closed and arms raised towards the heavens. At the centre of this spiritual circle, the characters, denoted by traditional masks, perform this thrilling legend. The show ends with one of the characters dancing in fire in a trance state, thus it is also known as the Fire Dance. The temple of Uluwatu, with its incredible sunsets, is surely the most intriguing place to see the Kecak Dance, but there are many others, such as the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park in Ungasan and the Pura Dalem Taman Kaja Temple in Ubud.