KEBYAR

The name of Kebyar is also used to describe the complete gamelan orchestra which accompany this kind of dance. It was recorded for the first time in the diary of a Dutch Regent in Buleleng (Singaraja) in 1915.

The famous Kebyar dancer was the late I Ktut Maria, who was born in Tabanan in 1895 and died in 1968. He was also the creator of the famous Kebyar Trompong dance, the combination of the sitting dance Kebyar Duduk and Trompong play. (Trompong: a row of small gongs in its 3 meter long table, usually played by 4 musicians together but sometimes it is only played by a singel player). Kebyar Trompong expresses the mood of a happy boy in his puberty age, moving here and there to show his new and bright dress, and somtimes playing his fan or sticking the Trompng instrument once or twice. But unlike the Baris dance, where the dancer dominated the gamelan, in Kebyar the dancer in dependent on th gamelan orchestra, especially the drums and cymbals. Actually Kebyar is the exhibition of the Gong Kebyar orchestra, not the dancer.

Another version of this dance is Legong Kebyar, danced by a couple of girls or a girls and a boy.