"It has been called Morning of the World" "Heaven on Earth and The Last Paradise" "Born of the fiery volcanic eruptions" "Bali is one of the chain of islands that stretches between Southeast of Asia and Australia" "On this isolated dot of land an extraordinary civilization developed which remains unique on earth" "Here, vibrant religious beliefs find expression in music dance, art and rituals created to please the gods and placate and demons of the spirit realm" "Admiring visitors have long feared this culture was doomed" "But the Balinese select what they desire from the outside world while clinging to their age-old ways" "Everything remains centered on a religion practiced only here... and life itself continues to be lived as a dance of devotion" "Rooted in cults of ancient magic fostered by rites of a mystical religion it is a pageant constantly recreated by its artists" "Bali, masterpiece of the gods" "In the beginning there was nothing" "All was emptiness" "Then, say the old manuscripts a turtle floating on the ocean was created" "and resting upon it the island of Bali" "High in the skies were the flaming heavens of the ancestors and over all, the realm of the gods" "The depths were inhabited by demons of the underworld" "In the middle world dwelt the people" "Early migrations added Malaysian and Polynesian bloodlines to the indigenous population" "As the centuries passed people and ideas swept in from India" "China, and Java" "Separated from Java by a strait of just two miles this speck of land 90 miles wide" "60 miles long is the only remaining stronghold of the Hindu faith in the Indonesian archipelago" "In Denpasar, the capital the traditional and the new collide head-on" "Unquestionably the city is changing as it attempts to deal with congestion pollution and overpopulation problems common to urban areas everywhere" "But the people adapt skillfully" "While utilizing material objects and technology from the modern world they hold fast to the powerful traditions that give meaning to their lives" "Some 1200 years ago" "Hindu thought first fired the Balinese imagination" "The flames of belief were fanned as successive tides of Hindu influence washed over Bali from Java and India" "From its precepts the Balinese fashioned their unique religion Agama Hindu" "According to its teachings the priestly class is the highest of Bali's four castes" "The high priest of Kamenuh begins each day reciting magic formulas accompanied by ritual gestures to prepare holy water" "It is used in such profusion that the Balinese fondly call Agama Hindu "the religion of holy water."" "For the Balinese life is only apart of a never ending cycle of death and rebirth onto the same family one step in the soul's long process of evolution" "Every newborn comes into this world directly from heaven and is therefore, treated with the reverence due a god" "The high priest and his priestess wife officiate at the rite that marks the 105th day of a baby's life" "Until today the baby was still so close to heaven that she belonged to the deities" "She was not yet a human beings she did not even have a name" "A temple priest purifies her and magic symbols are inscribed on the petals of a flower to protect her" "While bound to the spiritual realm she was never allowed to touch the impure earth" "Now, her feet touch the ground for the first time" "Relatives take gifts symbolic of riches from a vessel filled with holy water and put them on her" "This ceremony symbolizes the beginning of the human struggle" "The baby is now her mother's child" "Rice is the divine gift that sustains life on earth" "About half the island's population make their livelihood farming the sculpted rice terraces they call "steps of the gods"" "Embraced by the ice fields are thousands of villages and hamlets where most of Bali's two-and-a-half million people live" "In these tightly-knit communities every married man is obliged to belong to the village ward or banjar, and work for the common good" "Like generations of their ancestors before them" "Ketut Kantor and his cousin" "Made Tubuh, were born in the village of Batuan" "They live and work side by side" "Mrs. Kantor was born here too she met her future husband when she was six years old" "When they married she moved into his family compound" "Behind its enclosing wall the compound is laid out according to a prescribed pattern" "By night its open pavilions are used for sleeping by day for family activities" "The villages of Batuan is renowned for its artists" "Mr. Kantor observes" ""In Batuan most people participate in the arts" "Without art, people would not be normal"" "Each person must have a feeling for art painting, dance, even working in the rice fields"" "Fifty years ago the renowned American anthropologist Margaret Mead noted that the arts are part and parcel of the daily life of the Balinese as much as the village community or the irrigation system" "The compound is a little universe complete with everything from a family shrine to a fruit and vegetable garden" "Bananas and other fruits, coffee and vanilla are grown here" "Little is wasted" "Long ago I studied weaving with my mother" "I began when I was about eight years old" "Some of the things I weave are given to my children to wear to the temple" "I very much enjoy making offerings because since I was a child" "I was attracted to the decorations" "Making them is not really work" "Our belief in God makes it pleasurable" "Mr. Tubuh's daughter, Deni has come from her home next door to help" "Soon she will move here she and the Kantors' eldest son plan to marry" "Everyday the woman place offerings throughout the compound to appease the gods and spirits" "These, made of rice dough are specially prepared for a temple celebration" "After school village boys congregate at the Kantors' home to learn to dance" "In Bali children dance like American youngsters play baseball" "Kantor has been dancing at religious festivals since he was a boy" "His sons are accomplished dancers, too" "But today they play gamelan the shimmering music of gongs metallophones, cymbals, and drums that accompanies all religious and theatrical events" "Mr. Kantor's father the late Nyoman Kakul was one of the most famous Balinese dancers of his day" "He also taught dance to many of the royal families" "Recalling historic battles the baris dance emulates the fierce poses and frightening expressions of the warrior" "Teaching dance" "Kantor fullfills his obligation to his community and his father's legacy" "A system of water temples high in the mountains coordinates rice farming for the entire island" "The farmers are organized into subaks age-old cooperatives that insure even the lowest terraces receive their share of water" "Mr. Kantor's father bought rice paddies with money he earned touring world capitals in a Balinese dance troupe" "My father taught me how to read the fields use the cows and the best time to plant" "When we work and prepare the land it unifies and makes us one with the land" "As with every major event in Balinese life a propitious day is selected for the seedlings to be planted" "Rituals will ensure protection by the deities and the rice will be watched as closely as a developing child" "Every morning and again when the day's work is done the Balinese baths in village or local streams" "For centuries the highly productive rice-growing system has freed the relentlessly creative Balinese to perfect the arts that serve their community" "On an auspicious night" "Mr. Kantor will present topeng a masked dance-drama for his ancestral gods" "With offerings he requests permission from the ancestors to perform and use the masks" "He says" "These are sacred masks that were used by my father gifts from priest and kings" "Some are 200 years old" "The first time I performed outside my village my father arranged for a special ceremony for my thoughts and feelings to become one with the masks" "When my father died" "I dreamed he asked me to dance at the temple" "I took this mean that he gave me permission to wear his masks" "The masks represent historic characters prime ministers and kings as well as clowns" "With them he enacts stories based on Balinese chronicles" "Before I perform" "I often dream of my father when I dance we dance together" "As stories of the past echo into the present the children learn the history of their island thus binding the generations together" "While pleasing the gods" "Kantor's dance provides him and the community with spiritual enrichment" "The success of human endeavor depends on continually keeping the worlds of men gods and demonic powers in balance" "Communion with divine is made possible through temple celebrations" "Traditionally art has not been created as the expression of the individual but as a group effort to serve the gods and society" "The Balinese have no word for art" "Yet entire villages are made up of families of rice farmers who are also brilliant sculptors dancers, musicians, and painters" "The villages of Mas has long been famous as a community of wood-carvers" "Ida Bagus Anom is a mask-maker as were his father and grandfather" "Anom himself is a masked dancer so he has a deep understanding of the qualities with which a good ritual mask must be endowed" "In Bali we can see two kinds of masks" "One mask is for decoration" "So when we start a mask like this ...and I finish it" "But the mask has no power no soul, no spirit" "That's one" "Another one is the mask that has a spiritual or in Bali we believe the mask has a soul" "So if I make a mask like that the first time cutting the wood" "I must find a good day like a full moon, new moon" "And then when the mask is finished we make an offering and then bring it to the temple and the priest calls the spirits" "So a lot of it is with the religion activity" "The most difficulty to make a mask is to keep character, spirit, soul" "If you want to make a minister you must keep the soul the character like a minister" "If you make a king you have to keep the soul to the mask like a king" "So you need to know the story behind the mask" "When I am making a mask when I am carving a mask" "I am already thinking about the movement and the music, the melody" "So, like music, Carving, and dancing you must have a connection with each other" "So when I'm carving a mask" "I be thinking about the movement" "Anom continues to create expressive masks for religious performances" "He also makes original and inventive masks for international art collectors who eagerly seek his craftsmanship" "As foreigners became more interested in Balinese creations art entered a new era in this century" "But the connection between art and religion endures" "In the village of Pengosekan headman Dewa Nyoman Batuan exhibits and sells his artworks and those of his villagers" "Batuan reflects on the nature of Balinese art" "Paintings start form religion because everything is coming from God" "Everything is coming from God" "Because when we make painting first we must think about God" "Painting makes men closer to God" "Bima is a character form the Mahabharata a 2000 year old Hindu narrative poem" "In this painting that illustrates the Balinese cosmos he stands on the turtle that balances the world" "Below, hell is full of demons mythical creatures and miserable humans" "Bima must rescue his father's soul from hell and secure its admission to heaven" "The painting mirrors the pervasive influence of Agama Hindu on the arts" "A thousand years ago the flickering movements of the wayang kulits or shadow play, were brought from Java" "Puppets cast their shadows on a screen as they are manipulated by a mystic storyteller" "The cinematic images he creates are a favorite entertainment comparable to our TV" "His assistants help set up the puppets noble character on the right evil characters on the left" "Based on Hindu epics this traditional form of spiritual education also incorporates issues of topical concern to the villagers" "Most of the play is presented in classical Javanese a language not understood by most of the audience" "Only the clowns the characters with movable mouths speaks Balinese" "They reinforce the story with the help of slapsticks humors" "The performance wtll last far into the night" "At the end, evil will be vanquished the cosmos restored to order" "At Pangarebongan Temple on the outskirts of the capital a festival links the worlds of men and spirits in one of the most mysterious of all Balinese rites" "A barong, mythical protector of mankind is escorted into the temple" "Within, scores of boys and men prepared to enter trance" "In her 1939 landmark film" "Margaret Mead documented this fascinating phenomenon" "Rangda the witch is the Balinese embodiment of evils" "Each of her followers carries a dagger called a kris" "After an altercation between Rangda and the Barong the Barong tries to revive his entranced followers" "When all have fallen into trance they turn their daggers on themselves" "The participants believe fully in trance and the protection of Rangda and the Barong" "The daggers will not pierce their skin no matter how hard they push" "Trance is an altered state like hypnosis in which the Balinese put aside their usual decorum" "It is genuine and still widely practiced" "Trance mediums pray for the spirits of gods and demons to enter them" "Once in trance they are believed to be in direct contact with the spirit world" "They are led outside the temple by warrior dancers who wear black and white symbolic of good and evil" "Rangda appears" "Simply putting on the spiritually powerful masks causes those who wear them to fall onto trance" "Through this communication between the gods and the living the deities demonstrate their presence and power" "Such rituals have kept the Balinese world in harmony for generations" "As foreign artist and anthropologists spread the word of Bali' splendors in the 1920's and '30s a few hundred foreigners came here each year" "In 1969 the government built a jet airstrip" "The next year, 24,000 people visited" "Two decades later the number had jumped to 400,000" "Fearful of uncontrolled growth the government has restricted large hotels to the southern tip of the island" "After a single highrise hotel was built a law was passed to regulate construction" "No new building can be higher than a coconut palm" "Some visit Bali just for the beaches" "At the same time many discriminating visitors come to Bali for what has been called cultural tourism" "They have become patrons of the arts" "Their interest in Balinese creations is a source of pride for local artists who have found a new source of income by simply continuing to do they have always done so well" "Since the 1920's, Balinese painters while retaining native subject matter have found inspiration in the works of visiting Western artists" "Experimentation in themes, materials and approach has resulted in a fusion of folk art and modern style" "Sanur Beach has been the site of invasions by the Dutch the Japanese, and more recently, tourist" "Despite inevitable change the people retain their village lifestyle" "Eleven- year-old Wayan Mastri and her schoolmates live in Sanur" "It was the Indonesian government that opened education to girls" "Today, education is compulsory for all with parents required to pay a small fee" "On Mondays school begins with the singing of the national anthem in the Indonesian language an important element in unifying the world's fifth largest nation made up of diverse cultures languages, and religions" "While other classes are taught in the Bahasa Indonesian language religion is taught in Balinese" "Just steps away from a popular beach yet worlds away" "Mastri and her family live in a simple compound" "They work together making kites to supplement the modest living her father earns as a fisherman" "It takes a full day to craft one kite" "They are sold to tourists for about $10 each" "The Balinese themselves are very fond of kites" "Mastri's younger brother and sister take their own gaily painted birds to dance in the wind above Sanur Beach" "At festivals celebrated on each temple's anniversary the gods are called down from their home above the mountains and greeted with elaborate offerings" "Mastir and her family join the stream of worshippers at the Temple of the Dead in Sanur" "By cleaning and decorating the temple" "As well as preparing offerings everyone has shared in creating the festival" "The gods will remain on earth for these days the temple alive with the prayers of the entire village" "When the festival ends the gods will depart until next year when they will be summoned again" "For most Balinese the sea is a terrifying place a realm inhabited by demons of the underworld" "Remarkably" "Bali is one of the new island societies oriented away from the water" "But when the tide is right" "Mastri's father and brother brave the danger" "They have no boat and only a minimum of equipment" "The boy is learning from his father how to catch the tropical fish that provide most of the family's income" "He will sell the fish to an exporter for a few cents each" "In the compound they prepare the fish for shipment to Australia" "The Bags are filled woth oxygen for the flight" "The fish will be sold at high prices to shops that cater to tropical fish fanciers" "At the Tandjung Sari hotel on Sanur Beach" "Mastri and other local youngsters are taught traditional dances" "The management has created a foundation to preserve music and dance" "They believe that since hotels are replacing rice fields as the economic base here they have a responsibility to the villagers" "Every Saturday night Mastri and the others are transformed from school girls into court dancers" "Legong Kraton its story drawn from 13th century Java was once performed only in royal palaces" "Traditionally legong is danced by girls who have not yet reached the age of puberty" "Every performance is preceded by rituals to insure that the spirit world will be benevolent" "Contemporary anthropologist Philip McKean observes" "Often the "young find their identity as Balinese framed by the mirror that tourism holds up to them" "This has led many of them to celebrate their own traditions with continued vitality" "This legong portrays a kidnapped princes lost in the forest a heroic prince, and an omen-bearing bird" "Dances learned here are also performed in the banjar and village temples" "The dancers receive a small token payment" "But their deepest reward is in filling a spiritual need in themselves and their community" "There is growing awareness in the Balinese of the priceless value of their culture and its potential vulnerability" "ASTI, the performing arts college in the capital is under the direction of Dr. I. Made Bandem" "Son of a dance master he learned to dance and play gamelan instruments in his village" "Later he earned advanced degrees at UCLA and Wesleyan University" "ASTI has 400 students and 60 faculty members" "Dr. Bandem also invites dance master from the villages to share with students the diverse styles found throughout the island." "Dr. Bandem" "Dr. Bandem..." "Our curriculum in ASTI is really a combination between ideals of villages and also modern school" "ASTI is not separated from the society to which it belongs" "The subjects they learned at school is not only technique, music, and dance but also learning anthropology, history and other related cultural background so they can strengthen their appreciation of Balinese artist" "In the countryside the meticulously tended rice terraces yield their golden bounty as they have for centuries" "Working together the Kantor family gathers the stalks one by one" "Mr. Kantor says" "Rice is a very great gift from god" "Rice gives life to the Balinese people" "For the Kantors this marks the successful culmination of another cycle" "A ceremonial dish delivered throughout the banjar serves as the invitation to a unique rite of passage" "This is the tooth-filling ceremony a ritual that symbolically concludes the parent, child relationship" "The high priest has blessed his instruments to make the operation painless" "After death one may be denied entrance to the spirit world if his teeth have bot been filled" "The priest files the points of the canine teeth to form a straight line" "This diminishes what the Balinese consider "animal qualities"" "greed, anger, and jealousy" "The fillings will be buried in the family temple" "Marriage is the final initiation into the community" "All Balinese know their most important duty is to raise a son who, one day, will perform the cremation ceremony for his parents" "From her home next door" "Deni walks to the Kantors' compound for the rite that will unite her with their eldest son" "A priest purifies the couple with holy water and prayer" "They walked in a circle three times" "Deni balances a market basket" "Wayan carries food to suggest how he will provide" "The moment when Deni breaks the string signals the end of their lives as individuals their entrance to a new world as a couple" "Age-old gestures insure fertility" "In the Kantors' family shrine" "Deni takes leave of her ancestral gods" "From this day forward she embraces those of her husband" "All over the island villagers gather at their banjars to prepare for a momentous event" "A fine cremation is the life long ambition of very Balinese" "But a grand send-off requires the work of many hands and much money" "Mass cremations for which the entire village shares expenses are the answer" "Teams of artisans fashion sarcophagi for the great celebrations" "In the Kantors' village the rhythm of the kulkul announces that cremation ceremonies will soon begin" "The people have spent years saving for this day" "In the graveyard villagers custom they may be buried for 25 years or even longer, before the all-important cremation" "Mr. Kantor reflects" "As we dig up our ancestors' remains we remember how they helped is and gave is a good life" "Now we are without them" "We are very saddened" "Mr. Kantor's mother in law died six years ago" "Now her bones are carefully arranged in a white cloth" "Village men and boys assemble to carry the bodies a symbol of their loyalty to the deceased" "The families carry wood for the cremation pyres" "Strict caste rules dictate the shape of the sarcophagus" "Because Mrs. Kantor's mother was a member of the Sudra caste her sarcophagus is shaped like a mythical elephant, fish" "The raucous, joyful journey to the cremation grounds begins" "The sarcophagus are turned in all directions to confuse the souls of the departed and ensure that that will not wander back to their homes" "Carrying holy water and offerings they have spent weeks preparing the Kantor koin the other families at the cremation grounds" "Again, the remains are purified" "Offerings also serve as fuel" "Only when the body is destroyed is the soul free to be reunited with the Supreme Being" "This act is the most sacred duty of every Balinese" "Our greatest happiness occurs whenever we are successful in carrying out a good cremation and freeing our ancestors from the connection to earth" "This type of ceremony does not cause us sadness but creates a moment of happiness" "Cremations are a ceremony to free the souls of our ancestors a way of ending a long life and at the same time beginning a new one" "The ashes are taken to the sea the final act in the cremation that marks the passage from this life to the next" "And between incarnations the soul resides in a place just like Bali but devoid of all trouble and illness" "In the endless round of life by carefully discharging their sacred duties the Balinese have kept their world in balance for centuries" "The effects of modernization on contemporary Bali are profound Paradoxically tourists help preserve and renew the arts while propelling the Balinese toward a share of the wealth that all developing communities require" "Ever since they first arrived on these shores admiring outsiders have feared that foreign ideas might swamp this finely tuned society" "But while the 20th century has given the Balinese new ways of looking at their world it has also renewed their determination to preserve their ancient heritage" "As long as they remain bound together by ties of community, economics religious rituals, and ancestral loyalty" "Bali will remain an oasis of beauty and belief... the masterpiece of the gods"