National Geographic: Bali - Masterpiece of the Gods Page #3

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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

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