BALI, INDONESIA, September 19, 2019 (Jakarta Post): At 63 years old, Tjokorda Oka Artha Ardhana Sukawati has dedicated his life to Balinese arts and culture. The prominent member of the Ubud royal family and the Bali deputy governor, popularly called Cok Ace, actively performs the sacred dances of Calonarang and Topeng Sidakarya in religious ceremonies at temples across Bali. Cok Ace, who is also the chairman of the Bali branch of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association, said he felt sad to see sacred dances being performed only for tourists. The dances are also often performed at tourism festivals, including to break Indonesian-held world records. “Sacred dances should not be performed for commercial purposes. It’s a deviation,” he said.
Cok Ace is not the only one who has an uneasy feeling about the phenomenon. As a response, Bali’s government, along with several concerned institutions, on Tuesday banned 127 sacred dances from being performed in any form for commercial purposes. Their joint statement read: “We prohibit all parties from demonstrating/showing/staging/performing all kinds of sacred Balinese dances beyond the sacred purposes of Hindu ceremonies.” Bali Governor Wayan Koster added that since the prohibition is the form of an agreement, not a regulation, no sanctions would be applied. “Living orderly doesn’t mean applying sanctions; [we only need] a mutual understanding, since our concern is to protect Balinese sacred dances.”
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