Barong and Kris dance, Bali

Barong is a lion-like creature and character in the mythology of Bali, Indonesia.

 He is the king of the spirits, leader of the hosts of good, and enemy of Rangda, the demon queen and mother of all spirit guarders in the mythological traditions of Bali.

The battle between Barong and Rangda is featured in Barong dance to represent the eternal battle between good and evil.

The decorated stage for the Barong and Kris dance.

The Barong: 

The whole dance happens in five different scenes. 

First Act:

The female servants of Ranga (the evil) appears, looking for the servants of the Dewi Kunti (the Queen)

Second Act: 

The servants of Dewi Kunti looking for their Pati (the King) appears on the stage. 

One servant of Rangda turns to witch and changes the minds of Dewi Kunti's servants to make them fight between each other. 

They meet their King and altogether goes to Dewi Kunti.

Third Act: 

Dewi Kunti with their son appears on the stage. 

Long time before, Dewi Kunti has promised the Rangda to sacrifice her son Sadewa. Now evil spirit enters in to the Queen's mind which makes her to order her husband to sacrifice Sadewa to Rangda. 

As the evil spirit also influences the King, he too doesn't have any pity on Sadewa. Sadewa is taken into a forest ad tied up to a tree. 

Fourth Act: 

In the forest, God Shiva gives immortality to Sadewa. 

When Rangda tries to kill Sadewa, he will not succeeded. 

After few trials, he gives up and surrenders himself to Sadewa and asks him to redeem her. 

Rangda goes to Heaven. After this, Kalika, one of the Rangda's servants asks Sadewa to redeem herself too. But Sadewa refuses. 

With this insult, Kalika fights with Sadewa but fails to win over him. 

She then takes the form of a Boar and again gets defeated. 

She then tries to defeat Sadewa in the form of a bird and again gets defeated. 

Atlast she turns herself to Rangda. 

With this, Sadewa meditates and then changes to Barong. 

The good and the evil fight with each other and the fight is still going on. ... 

The whole dance is with live instrumental music which have few local words between. 

The music is good and enjoyable. 

We get to see the Balinese traditional art form and their appearances. But the story is quite confusing and not clear even if they have distributed pamphlets with the story. 

Main motive of the story is the fight between good and bad. Even a person is good, a small evil thought can change our lives. The fight between good and bad is not between people but it's the fight of the good and bad thoughts in our mind. 

They just keep on fighting with each other and we have to be strong enough to take only the good. 

Visitors info: 

1. The ticket price is 100,000 IDR (10 USD approx)

2. The show starts at 9.30 AM every day. 

3. Read and follow the pamphlet given, to understand the dance.