Kecak

All you want to know about Kecak

A Kecak dance being performed at Uluwatu, in Bali
A Kecak dance being performed at Uluwatu, in Bali
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Kecak (pronounced: /'ke.tʃak/, roughly "KEH-chahk", alternate spellings: Ketjak, Ketjack, and Ketiak), a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and is performed primarily by men. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting "cak" and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where the monkey-like Vanara helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. However, Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance[1].

Kecak 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"[2] 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 while, into a separate entity."[3] 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 where already developing the form when Spies arrived on the island[4]. 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[1].

Contents

In popular culture

 Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (July 2008)

In Anglo-American popular culture

  • Video of a Kecak performance is prominently featured in the 1992 film Baraka. Several audio recordings are commercially available.
  • Kecak chanting forms the basis of the song "The Oracle" in the Super NES video game Secret of Mana.
  • Kecak chanting is featured in the song "Kecak" in the Japanese music video game beatmania IIDX 11 – IIDX RED. Songwriter John Robinson got inspiration for this song from the Kecak dance.
  • A sample of Kecak chanting kicks off The Pop Group's 1980 album For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?
  • Kecak, performed by Mike Patton, is also incorporated in the song "Goodbye Sober Day" on the 1999 Mr. Bungle album California. Patton had previously performed a Kecak-like passage of rhythmic chanting in the Faith No More song "Got That Feeling," from 1997's Album of the Year.
  • Kecak is a mini-game in Capcom's Breath of Fire IV video game for PlayStation. The player mimics the chants by timing button presses corresponding to the screen.
  • A Kecak chant is played during the closing credits of the Asian-influenced show Avatar: The Last Airbender.
  • A Kecak dance is performed in a Season 2 episode of MTV's Wildboyz, with Chris Pontius and Steve-O eagerly participating in the ritual during their stay in Indonesia. Here it is referred to as a "Sardono Kecak".
  • A Kecak dance and chant can be seen in Tarsem Singh's film The Fall (2006).
  • The chant is heard during a scene in the Coen Brothers' film "Blood Simple."
  • A sort of Kecak chant can be heard in Jade Warrior's "Floating World" side-B album, called simply "Monkey Chant". It has been mixed including a Jimi Hendrix-like guitar solo (played by David Duhig).
  • A song from the debut album by musical group Hercules and Love Affair has an intro in the style of Kecak chanting.

Bibliography

  • Kecak from Bali. Produced by David Lewiston, 1990. One compact disc (duration 44:53) with notes and libretto by Fred B. Eiseman and David Lewiston. 9019. As of 1991 this was the only commercial release outside Bali which features only and a complete performance of kecak[5].
  • I Wayan Dibia, Kecak: the vocal chant of Bali. Denpasar: Hartanto Art Books, 1996. vi + 83pp. Tables, photos, index. ISBN 979 95045 4 6. "This little book covers all the elements of Kecak"[4]

Sources

  1. ^ a b "'Cultural Tourism' in Bali: Cultural Performances as Tourist Attraction", p.59. Author(s): Michel Picard. Source: Indonesia, Vol. 49, (Apr., 1990), pp. 37-74. Published by: Southeast Asia Program Publications at Cornell University.
  2. ^ James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 223. Cited in Yamashita (1999), p.178.
  3. ^ Review: [untitled] Author(s): Shinji Yamashita. Reviewed work(s): Bali: Cultural Tourism and Touristic Culture by Michel Picard. Source: Indonesia, Vol. 67, (Apr., 1999), pp. 177-182. Published by: Southeast Asia Program Publications at Cornell University.
  4. ^ a b Review: [untitled], p.195. Author(s): David W. Hughes. Reviewed work(s): Kecak: The Vocal Chant of Bali by I Wayan Dibia. Source: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 6, (1997), pp. 195-195. Published by: British Forum for Ethnomusicology.
  5. ^ Review: [untitled]. Author(s): David Harnish. Reviewed work(s): Kecak from Bali by David Lewiston. Source: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 35, No. 2, (Spring - Summer, 1991), pp. 302-304. Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for Ethnomusicology

External links

Listening

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kecak"

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