A letter from Indonesia.

JAKARTA--in Hong Kong last August, to chair the meeting of the international Council of Kinetography Laban, I decided it was time to explore dance in Indonesia. My first stop was Yogakarta, home the most important school of the arts in southern "Yogya", (nickname for Yogakarta) is built in the lovely, sunny style so common In Java: white walls; gleaming, pristine tile floors; a dark brown wooden frame; steeply sloping roof; open, airy pavilions; and a general blurring of indoors and outdoors. When I asked what happens when it rains, the answer was a deadpan, "We get wet."

Most remarkable to someone nurtured in European-American specialization is the natural blending of the various arts. Dancers study music and play instruments in the gamelan, the Indonesian equivalent of our orchestra; musicians study dance; everyone learns how to manipulate the delicately wrought, traditional shadow puppets. Many dance presentations have as a major element spoken drama, with the actors performing stylized dance movement, perhaps with clowning, while telling the story in a declamatory style.

The course of study for dancers requires them to learn many Indonesian styles. Dancers of both sexes learn the repertory for males and females, which involve very different vocabularies and dynamics. The curriculum also includes dance history and Labanotation. A thesis is required from each graduate. My hostess, Puspawati, is a professional dancer and teacher who holds degrees in both dance, from ISI, and archaeology, from Gadja Mada University. Puspawati wrote her ISI thesis about the dances of a particular village, thus helping to preserve the cultural heritage while fulfilling scholastic requirements.

I also visited the private dance school of Pak Bagong (Bagong Kussudiardja), one of the foremost Indonesian teachers and choreographers. The facility, a gorgeous complex of pavilions, a dormitory, and a family compound, also includes a two-story art gallery housing the painting and sculpture of Pak Bagong, a visual artist as well as a painter.

A rehearsal in the little palace of the sultan (yes, there is a sultan) taught me a bit about the very legato, lyrical Javanese style, specifically that of Solo, a town close to Yogakarta. Each region of Indonesia has a distinctive style, as I learned one evening watching a series of solo dances performed at an out-of-the-way cafe. There were dances distilled from the Balinese, Surakarta, and Solo styles as well as two hybrid dances by contemporary choreographers.

My last stop in Java was a bang-up tourist presentation of the Ramayana story at Prambanan, a sprawling outdoor stadium on the premises of an ancient sacred temple. The production is replete with a cast of hundreds and Hollywood-style images, a raft of lovely ladies appearing on parapets in the bright full moon (this dance drama is performed only when nature cooperates); a stunning couple as the decorously amorous principals; a monkey dance; clownlike characters for comic relief; a blaze of fire; and a photo op at the very end.

Traveling on to Bali, I found that the presentations had a very different atmosphere, although they, too, were clearly mounted for tourists. While a large distinction is made between presentational dances--with performers having studied long and arduously, many at ISI--and sacred dances, practiced in religious privacy by the community at large, there has been a conscious decision to keep things close to authentic and to use the proceeds generated to help maintain the splendiferous costumes, props, and masks that are a part of the temple rituals. Typically the women, who begin dancing at age five, are bound in gold cloth, with ornate sheathlike sarongs, scarves hung from the bodice, and flowered headpieces, while the men wear brocaded capelike garments of strips of cloth hanging from an elaborate collar, and are crowned with gem-studded headdresses. The costumes foreshadow and control the movement.

Women use only closed-foot positions, with bent knees always in proximity to one another. The weight is held low; the torso, in a position resembling the beginning of a "sit," somewhat arched and often tilted sideward, has little movement. Arms and hands, angled at the elbows and wrists, move in a sensual, sequential continuity. The face is animated by prescribed eye movement. Vibratory movement in fingers and legs is also a feature.

The men, with amazing turnout, move mostly in a wide Second-Position plie, with arm movements not identical but similar to those of the women. Slow, controlled, gliding movement is broken by sudden explosions of energy: staccato, vibratory, skittering. Stylized facial movement and a held torso are elements that the men have in common with the women. Character dancers have an important role in almost every dance form. They are often masked and padded, with phantasmagoric costumes. They appear variously as evil spirits, comedians, and narrators.

One could spend weeks in Bali seeing a different dance form each night. All tell stories, although "telling the story" is probably a misnomer. One of my favorite forms, legong, seems totally abstract to my Western eyes. It seems that, since everyone knows the story from childhood on, it need not be retold each night.

Here are some of the forms I encountered, listed in the order in which I saw them:

Kecak: This is the renowned "Monkey Chant" dance. An elaborate candelabra is ignited, lights lowered, and one hundred (well, forty or fifty) men, bare chests glistening in the candlelight, arms upraised, enter chanting. As they form a circle around the fire they break into part chanting with such syllables as "chuck, chuck, chunk," "chac-a-chak," and so forth, producing a chattering sound like no other. It is accompanied by some legato dancing by a trio of women who enter and leave, a solo male dancer, and several character dancers, as well as some simple mass group movement for the male chorus who exit at the end.

Presented on the same program with kecak are two trance dances. In the first, Sanghyang Dedari, meaning "holy angels," two "vestal virgins" (my words), youngsters who appear to be about ten years old, are carried into the candlelit circle, having previously entered into a trance. They dance in unison, eyes closed, in a dreamlike version of legong, accompanied alternately by a female and a male choir. When they fall to the ground in real or simulated exhaustion, two female retainers and the pemanku (holy man) sprinkling holy water, revive them, a ritual that is repeated three times. In the second, Sanghyang Jaran, or holy horse, a male trance dancer riding a straw hobby horse, walks through the burning embers of a coconut-shell fire.

Gabor: This performance was a sort of variety show of different dance forms. The first act was an example of topeng, or masked dance. Apparently masked dances are one of the highest forms, as the performer must express the story and character without the benefit of facial expression. The second part of the program was the enactment of a typical tale of princes and princesses, gods and goddesses, love and abandonment, attack and response, witches, evil sprits, and magic.

Barong and kris dance: Representing the eternal fight between good and evil, the beginning of this presentation was a burlesque, replete with a snapping dragon made up of two players under a long tiger costume, masked and padded comedians, and a "monkey" who bit off the nose of the hero, After the comic relief came a tale of servants, Rangda the "heavy," lovers Dewi Kunti and Sahadewa, witches, possession, transmogrification, fighting, death, and immortality. Kris, another trance dance, followed. Young warriors mime self-destructive attempts at stabbing, but no matter how hard they try, they can't pierce their own bodies with their swords.

Legong: The most fascinating dance for this Western observer presents a trio of females, first one, then two, executing the most varied yet traditional Balinese movement. It is a classical dance of welcome, inspired by a sacred temple ritual. There follows Baris, a warrior's solo dance, then an abstraction of a love tale, and a stunning duet for two lovely female "birds of paradise," all topped off by a topeng male solo. All of the players and dancers of the exceptional troupe Tirta Sari, from the village of Peliatan, are children, ranging in age from seven to fourteen. The gamelan is extraordinary, with music that is innovative and crisp, exhibiting a wider range of rhythmic variation and imaginative voicing than anything else I witnessed. And the dancers were fabulous!

There are other dance forms which I did not see, but those I did see were beautiful, moving, deeply satisfying, and rich in vocabulary in a style little known in the West.