Topeng Sidha Karya: A Balinese Mask Dance - Yavanika

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TOPENG: SIDHA K ARYA 177of the island. The topeng dancer’s action is primarily within the physicalrealm and, therefore, it is appropriate that he uses the elementsthat appeal to our senses—music, dance, comedy, and political commentary—togive spiritual ideas a home in the here and now.Story is potent in that it allows us to control and contain reality.Narrative creates a structure that naturalizes the alien into the familiarand recalibrates the demonic into the comic. This is the functionof the bondres (clown) scenes in topeng where performers introducenew comic characters of their own invention. The pompous officialcontrolling everyone (Bondres Senggap), the one whose seems to misspeakbut actually may be smart (Bondres Wus)—both are graftedcomfortably into the existing story’s order.The topeng dancer’s artistic control exerts a kind of sympatheticmagic over life. Humans and demons, given their limited imaginationsand short attention spans, are easily subverted by the power of narrativeand the subterfuge of art. Danger and disruption are exorcisedfrom the everyday and embedded in a narrative that diffuses theirimpact.Relations of Ruler, People, and PriestThe performance shows a triangular relationship in the Balinesesocial order. In one sense, the two poles are the ruler (WatuRenggong) and the ruled (the attendants, ministers, and clowns). It isthis second group that is beset by the problem of the plague, bomb, orother disasters. But the duo of leader and the led is triangulated by aspiritual leader who in one iteration is Sidha Karya and in another isPandita Markandya, the priest of Besakih Temple. If we pay attentionmerely to ruler and ruled, who divide authority, money, and power,society will be sterile. Humans need a third space, a spiritual space,which is represented by the Brahmana Keling/Sidha Karya and thepriest Markandya. These figures move us beyond complacency and putspirit into action. Half comedians and half teachers, Sidha Karya andMarkandya point toward an area beyond the mundane. They help thedemonic and divine realize that they are merely flip sides of the samecosmic power. They know the verdant mountain and the eruptingvolcano are one and the same. They see that the bomb is a wake-upcall to social and religious action in Bali and beyond.LanguageThe dialogue of the mask characters in a topeng performance isin Kawi, an archaic literary language associated with ritual, and someof the poetic song lyrics are in middle Javanese that is likewise imperfectlyunderstood. Listeners and performers often cannot translate the
178 Kodi et al.memorized phrases. Characters that enact the story speak this obscurelanguage associated with the ancestors. It is made accessible to theaudience by the clowns who translate.To give a sense of the distance between the Kawi and the partof the text understood by viewers, the translator has maintained theoriginal Kawi. The clown/attendants speak this Kawi for their betters,whose full-face masks prevent vocalization. The clowns chant or speakthe lines for the noble characters, and then give the translation intoBalinese. In some instances, when their answer as a retainer clarifiesthe nature of the master’s question, the clowns do not give the actualwords of the noble. In these few instances where there is no directtranslation, an approximation is provided in brackets without italics.The taped performance text was transcribed by I Ketut Kodi, themajor performer of the piece. I Nyoman Sedana translated this Balinesetext into English. I worked from his translation, making the languagemore colloquial, cutting repetitions, and clarifing the critiqueand jokes. In the translation, pure stage directions are given in italicsenclosed in parentheses. Brackets with italics are used to explain materialthat might be known to locals, but could be obscure to readers.The strengths of the translation come from the Balinese performerswho shared their creative work; the weaknesses are in the loss of therhythms inherent in Balinese language and the interactive dynamicthat makes improvised performance so exciting.The fact that the clowns are the source of virtually all the dialoguealso accounts for the comic aura for what is a ritual event. Oneis hard pressed to imagine an American audience accepting jokingnear the World Trade Center devastation. But the Balinese approachto disaster is more like the medieval spirit of Carnival. High and lowintermix. Laughter and clowning are indigenous remedies for thepost-traumatic stress, and clowns, not psychologists, heal the shatteredworld.CASTTOPENG SIDHA KARYAtopeng keras manis (strong but sweet mask), I Gusti Putu Sudartatopeng keras agung (strong, noble mask), I Nyoman Sedanatopeng buduh/demung (mischievous mask), I Made Sidiatopeng tua (mask of old man), I Ketut Kodipunta (the older court attendant/clown), I Gusti Putu Sudartakartala (the younger court attendant/clown, punta’s brother), I Ketut Kodi
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Page 3 and 4: 172 Kodi et al.when referring to th
Page 5: 174 Kodi et al.island, close to the
Page 10 and 11: TOPENG: SIDHA K ARYA 179dalem watu
Page 12 and 13: TOPENG: SIDHA K ARYA 181punta: (Spe
Page 15 and 16: 184 Kodi et al.kartala: (To the aud
Page 17 and 18: 186 Kodi et al.dalem: (Recited by p
Page 19 and 20: 188 Kodi et al.dalem: (Recited by k
Page 21 and 22: 190 Kodi et al.punta: (Translating)
Page 23 and 24: 192 Kodi et al.punta: . . . Demon d
Page 25 and 26: 194 Kodi et al.each pig’s mouth.
Page 27 and 28: 196 Kodi et al.The ceremony at Besa
Page 29: 198 Kodi et al.Figure 4. No longer

Topeng Sidha Karya: A Balinese Mask Dance - Yavanika

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