Music, Dance and Drama

In Bali, no temple festival or ceremony is complete without accompanying entertainment for the God, attending guest and local people. Temple anniversaries are occasion for all-night drama and dance performance. This re found nowhere else in the world.

The basic accompaniment to any such performance is provided by the local gamelan orchestra, a group of bronze instruments, met allophones, tunes gongs, cymbal, and hand drums. The instruments are generally owned by the village, as they are extremely expensive. They are stored at the village's meeting hall (Bale Banjar).

In times gone by Balinese music was passed from generation to generation purely by memory recently Balinese music has been written down or recorded on audio or videotape. Each particular dance and dramatic performance has its own special combination of instrument to built the nature of the ceremony. Melodious bamboo flutes (suling), reedy four stringed, violin like instrument (rebab) and twinging jew's harp-like instrument (genggong) are all used to provide their own special effect.