Performances
Visit Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance and experience the many rich performance traditions of Bali, including music, dance and much more. Hear a gamelan orchestra play the captivating music of the island. Watch shadow puppet masters demonstrate their hypnotic art. Performances are free with museum admission unless otherwise indicated.
Upcoming Performances
An Afternoon of Enchanting Indonesian Ethnic Dance
Featuring dancers from the Indonesia Institute of the Arts – Denpasar, Bali
Saturday, September 10
2:00 pm
FREE with museum admission
The expert dancers of Bali’s Indonesia Institute of the Arts will provide a ‘grand tour’ of the variety of Indonesian ethnic dance from the tribal forms of Papua and Sulawesi in the far West and North of the country, to the sophisticated temple and popular dances of Bali and Java in the East. Join us for this unforgettable afternoon, including live gamelan performance!
Co-presented with the Consulate General of Indonesia in San Francisco, the Hon. Asianto Sinambela, Consul General.
Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance Closing Ceremony
Sunday, September 11
11:30 am
FREE with museum admission
The purpose of the Bali Closing Ceremony is to close the exhibition with an auspicious ceremony that also remembers the victims of 9/11 as well as terrorists acts in Bali. The program will include sacred dance, music, and shadow theater and the making of offerings by members of the local Balinese community working with a visiting master artist Bapak Sija who is also a renowned spiritual advisor in Bali.
The closing ceremony is different in form and presentation than other programs hosted on site—it is organic and fluid, exactly as it is presented in Bali, with the community coming together with respect to the space and the objects. Although there is no set schedule to follow, there are rituals and performances happening inside and outside the museum throughout the morning. Wherever you are in the space, you will witness something.
The works include the transcendent ceremonial dance piece Rejang Dewa, and a sundry suite of masked dances—Topeng Pajagan, featuring the brilliant artist Bapak Wayan Sira. These pieces will include Gamelan Sekar Jaya (GSJ) and Gadung Kasturi company dancers, and members of the greater Balinese dance community.
You’ll also get a chance to witness GSJ’s gender wayang ensemble accompanying revered puppet master Bapa I Made Sija for wayang lemah, a ceremonial shadow play performed primarily for invisible spirit audiences, which in this case functions to ensure the success of the BALI closing ceremony.
Come avail yourself to this rare opportunity for westerners to experience these works in their intended ceremonial context.
Co-presented with Gamelan Sekar Jaya and Gadung Kasturi.
Past Performances
Opening Celebration
Friday, February 25, 10:00 am–10:15 am, Purification Dance; 12:00 noon–2:00 pm: Gamelan Music
FREE with museum admission
Watch Bay Area dance troupe Gadung Kasturi open special exhibition Bali with nyapuh jagat ("sweeping the world"), the ritual cleansing dance of the self and the environment necessary before an important Balinese event. Later, hear the shimmering sounds of Bay Area ensemble Gamelan Gender Wayang.
Gamelan Music with Gamelan Gender Wayang
Sunday, March 6, 12:00 noon-2:00 pm
FREE with museum admission
Likened to a string quartet in its compact complexity, Gender Wayang is one of the smallest forms of gamelan music (bronze and bamboo ensembles). Appropriate for both intimate gatherings and larger functions, this particular group accompanies shadow puppet theater (wayang kulit), which plays a central role in Balinese life.
The Creatures of Balinese Mythology with I Made Moja and Gamelan Sekar Jaya
Thursday, March 3, 6:00 pm: Open Rehearsal FREE with museum admission
Friday, March 11, 7:00 pm: $10 members | $27 general
Saturday, March 12, 2:00 pm: $10 members | $27 general
Sold out
See this local Balinese artist and Bay Area ensemble perform a new multidisciplinary collaborative work.
Balinese Mask Dance
Sunday, April 3, 2:00 pm
FREE With museum admission
Thrill to the wonder of traditional mask dance performances with singer, dancer and artist I Made Suryasa. Meet the dancer, see the mask inside and out, explore the elaborate costume up close, and find out about the various characters in the Topeng Mask drama.
Makrokosma Bali
Friday, May 13, 8:00 pm: $20 members | $37 general
Saturday, May 14, 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm: $20 members | $37 general
Sunday, May 15, 1:00 pm: $20 members | $37 general
Tickets go on sale April 1.
SEKAA GONG TARUNA MEKAR (Tunjuk, Bali)—musicians
WAYNE VITALE—artistic director and co-composer
I MADE ARNAWA— music director and co-composer
ALLEN WILLNER—lighting and stage designer
ERIC KOZIOL—video designer
IAN WINTER—video processing
GREG KUHN—audio engineer
Composer Wayne Vitale collaborates with Sekaa Gong Taruna Mekar, a renowned gamelan ensemble from Bali under the direction of I Made Arnawa; and US-based visual and set designers, in Makrokosma Bali. The work combines new music for gamelan orchestra with projected video and still imagery, digital-audio soundscapes, and an integrated lighting and set design. Makrokosma Bali contrasts the cultural values and cosmology of Bali with those of Western origin, exploring a range of scales from macro (galaxies) to micro (a human cell). A panoply of video imagery—people, landscapes, cities, rice harvesting, offerings, temples, the forging of red-hot bronze gongs—will be projected onto multiple screens and surfaces, brought to life through the virtuosic playing of Sekaa Gong Taruna Mekar.
More information on Makrokosma Bali.
Gamelan Jegog with Gamelan Sekar Jaya
Sunday, June 5, 12:30 pm and 2:00 pm
FREE with museum admission
Internationally acclaimed Bay Area ensemble Gamelan Sekar Jaya presents a performance with jegogs, dramatic bamboo marimbas with tubes up to eight feet long. Noted for its rhythmic energy, unusual four-tone scale and powerful sound, the jegog originated in western Bali. Gamelan Sekar Jaya’s jegog ensemble is the only one of its kind in the Western hemisphere. Director I Dewa Putu Berata is a renowned composer and the director of Bali’s famed Çudamani ensemble. Gamelan Sekar Jaya is the only non-Balinese group to receive the Dharma Kusuma, Bali’s highest award for artistic achievement. In its music it explores a wide range of forms, from traditional Balinese pieces to cutting-edge compositions, and hosts long-term residencies by Bali’s finest musicians and dancers.
The Story of the Pregnant Woman
Thursday, July 21, 6:00 pm
FREE with museum admission
In 1906 the Dutch armed forces succeeded in conquering the south of Bali in the massacre of the three remaining undefeated royal families. For the Balinese, it was an act of ritual mass suicide they refer to as puputan: the ending. The Story of the Pregnant Woman, a multimedia performance, is a personal telling of the event through the eyes of a commoner royal wife in the Badung court at Puri Denpasar and the journals of young Dutch infantry men. It combines all the earmarks of great historical drama: love, intrigue, honor, death, and supernatural power in a universal theme of war and conquering nations.
Wayang Parwa Puppetry with I Wayan Wija 
Thursday, August 25, 6:00 pm: $10 members | $27
Tickets available online
The celebrated puppet master performs wayang parwa, a form of classical Balinese puppetry that brings to life scenes from the epic Mahabharata.
