The colours of Bali, thick, misty, black and red grounds, green among the smokes of a village, a blade of light that cuts the forest and the green becomes steel, stagnant water at sun, long shadows, whites and blacks, bricks wrapped in colours, high and narrow flags, decorated trees, crimson red, orange, magenta, baldachins and flowers, cut, offered, dispersed.
A little, very beautiful, forgotten island developed such a variety of dances and dramatic forms to become the dream of a travel in an exotic country, the island of beauty and love. And maybe the Balinese people venerate this two entities when, in little groups, they come along a crowded cross-roads trotting with umbrellas and baldachins.
Those who remember Denpasar at the end of the Sixties, with the excavated roads and the oil lamps that spread dancing shadows hardly enlightening the warung, may be bewildered, nowadays, getting caught in a morning traffic jam in Gianyar, without knowing what to do. But looking at the crowd, some ancient and precise signs come to meet us (we are not far from our destination); an inviting road, a costume kept underhand, a mask coming out from a basket, a pick-up full of strange people, it's enough to follow them to arrive to the village of Batu Bulan where every morning we can admire Barong and Kris Dance.
The Barong dance is the representation of the eternal fight between Good and Evil. Barong is the good spirit which has the power of defending the life and pureness of the village, Rangda is the chaos, the evil, the death. After bloody fights with a big bloodshed, with poisoned daggers and different magic, the good finally triumphs. It's said that sometimes, in the heat of the play, actors seriously hurt themselves and someone died.
However the masks of Barong and Rangda are considered as sacred and before any transport they must be blessed with the holy water of Mount Agung.