Balinese dancer advances in Rangda witch costume
About this photograph
- Creator
- Margery H. Freeman
- Date created
- 1986
- Location
- Batubulan, Bali, Indonesia
- License
- This photograph copyright ©2007. Terms of use
See this photograph in context
- Traditional performing arts in Bali: Photographs and text illustrate traditional performance in Bali, including music, theater, and dance. (Page 5)
Related media
Learn more
- Search LEARN NC for Bali, Batubulan, cosmology, dance, Indonesia, mythology, performance, Rangda, theater, and witches.
In the classroom
- See our collection of articles on visual literacy for ideas on using photographs meaningfully in the classroom.
A Balinese dancer advances in a Rangda costume. Rangda costumes have wooden masks with bulging eyes, and tangled white hair. The dancer also wears long knife-like fingernail attachments and sports dangling striped breasts.
Many Balinese dramas involve contests between the evil witch Rangda and her foe, Barong, a mythological creature who looks somewhat like a gilded and furry lion. The costumes for both these mythological creatures are considered sacred and thus are stored in village temples when not in use.
Many Balinese dramas enact encounters between positive and negative beings in the universe. At the end of the performances, evil beings are never completely eliminated because the Balinese accept that good and bad always will coexist although human efforts should attempt to keep evil and disorder to a minimum.
