Bali History

History of Sanur Beach

Sanur beach located in Sanur village, subdistrict of south Denpasar. This beach located in south east of Sanur village, which is the shore of Indonesian ocean in south of Bali island. This place is very famous since long time ago, especially when the Puputan Badung war happened on September 20th 1906 where Deutsch landed their armies there.

In the ancient history of Bali, Sanur beach is very famous, there is still a writing stone tablet which is the relic of King Kasari Warmadewa which has throne in Singhadwala on 917, where it is now located in Blanjong, in the south part of Sanur beach.

In the tourism industry, Sanur beach introduced first time by a Belgian artist named A.J. Le Mayeur and his wife Ni Polok who lived in Sanur since 1937 and organizing his own painting exhibition. Until now, the works of Le Mayeur can be still enjoyed, by visiting his museum, called Museum Le Mayeur in Sanur area.

The interest of Sanur beach is the north part has a half round shape and the south part turn from east to west, where the sea wave is not very big and when the water goes lower we can see many beautiful coral. In the day aroud the dead moon time the water goes high and the wave become bigger. In the southwest we can see Nusa Penida islands across the sea and in the east we can see the south beach of Bali scenery with its mountain.

The scenery of Sanur beach also looks very beautiful in the evening, because usually the water goes lower. We can see Serangan island cluster and rock hill toward to the sea across the south part of Sanur beach. The scenery of south Sanur beach looks more beautiful in the morning. Perfect place to see it, is in the east part, in Semawang and Mertasari. Sanur area is very close to Denpasar and also Kuta.

The atmosphere in this place is very cool and refreshing. The condition alongside the Sanur beach is very nice and calm because there are full of big trees. Sanur beach is suitable for enjoying the sunrise and sunbathing along the white sand beach.

Of of the best place to see the sunrise is at Sindhu Beach, close to the main road of Sanur, Danau Tamblingan Street (Danau has the meaning of Lake). If you come to this place at around 5AM, you will enjoy the spectacular sunrise. No need to pay to enter the beach. But, if you bring a car there will be a parking charge at only IDR 10.000.

Living in Sanur is peaceful. That is why we can see many tourist in Sanur mostly dominated by seniors. There are youngster tourist here, but not much. Sanur is the opposite of Kuta. While Kuta is very crowded with bars, night life activities, young tourist with bikini, Sanur has only few bars, rare night life activities, thus no tourist women wearing the bikini on the street.

Balinese Dance Characteristic

On Java dance is in large part the prerogative of the courts, but on Bali it's a living, popular art form, most active in the villages. On Java a fine classical dancer is frequently a member of the sultan's retinue. On Bali, a dancer is an ordinary villager with unusual skill who performs pleasingly before the gods for community prestige, for the entertainment of friends and family, and for tourists for money.

Balinese dance is much influenced by Javanese dance movements, which are a mirror of the Javanese wayang kulit theater in which all emotion is expressed through rigidly controlled gestures, the eyes unfocused, the lips closed, and the face fixed and mask-like as if the actor were a marionette. In both female and male dancing, the limbs form angles with the head sinking down so far that the neck disappears.

At other times, the eyes flicker and dance. In Balinese classical dance, all movements and limbs are very expressive the face, fingers, wrists, neck, eyes, hips, knee, feet, ankles. Unlike in India, the majority of Balinese dance movements tilt of the head or twist of the fingers are decorative and do not carry any specific meaning.

The exceptions are the pronounced gestures thaf convey anger or prayer; nose kissing, greetings, and impassioned speeches, which have their inherent emotional meanings; or those that obviously represent daily tasks, such as opening a curtain, holding a cloth, or weaving.

Balinese dance is subtle, drawing the audience into the dancers world. Simultaneously, it is blatantly erotic. Female postures are characterized by bent legs held close together, open feet, off-center shoulders, and spines curved to sensuously push out the buttocks. A dance teacher can often be heard reminding her students to strike provocative poses.

Bali Dance History

About 1,500 years ago, Indian influences began to make their way via Java to Bali. Thus, the characters of the Hindu Mahabharata and Ramayana epic poems are today the heroes and deities of Hinduized Balinese dancing, and strong traces of 10th-century Tantric rites and magical sorcery as well as several Indian mudra ire found in several Balinese dances.

Since the mass infusion of the Javano-Hindu culture into Bali that followed the Majapahit collapse, the Balinese have created their own lances and characters. The clowns (bebanyuan), for example, are a personification of the Italinese genius for assimilating new influences without destroying the integrity of the old.

The first commercial tourist performances were staged in 1928 at KPMA Bali Hotel in Denpasar and at the Kuta Beach Hotel. In the 1930s, with the decline of the aristocratic houses, dancing and musical instruments were taken over by the villages. As a result, dancing became more dynamic, fast-moving, and thralling. Nurtured by the stability of the colonial period, musical activity in the villages flourished and dance clubs proliferated.

In the early 1930s, the Peliatan Legong troupe was the first Balinese dance company to perform abroad. They were feted in London and New York and played at the 1931 Exposition in Paris. During the Japanese occupation (1942- 45), Bali became a rest and recuperation center icr Japanese soldiers; the taste of the occupiers gave rise to such dances as the prembon and wiranata, still occasionally staged today.

Under the sponsorship of the nation-building Sukarno regime, the dancers and musicians of Ubud-Peliatan were again dispatched (in a world circuit tour in the 1950s. Also in the 1950s, the same troupe costarred with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour in the very forgettable Hollywood film Road to Bali.

Starting in 1967, with Suharto's New Order regime reopening Bali's doors to foreigners, lances were staged at the newly inaugurated Bali Beach Hotel in Sanur. By the late 1960s, lime number of foreign visitors had reached 30,000 per annum, and Bali was adopted as a showcase for Indonesia's efforts to promote a cultural tourism.

This development of tourism undeniably stimulated performing arts cultural renaissance. Even at this relatively early date, Balinese dancing represented the island's trademark for outsiders and a yardstick of artistic activity for the Balinese themselves.

Ever since the late 1970s, Balinese dance troupes have regularly made world tours, but the exoticism and spectacle of a Balinese performance is no longer in itself sufficient to guarantee spellbinding success with Western audiences, who have become increasingly sophisticated over the years. According to the critics, group of professionals on four in 1989 was deemed perfunctory and devoid of all feeling, falling far short of the intoxicating presentations of the 1930s.

Airlangga Dynasty Bali

The marriage of Balinese Prince Udayana of the Warmadewa dynasty to east Javanese Princess Mahendradatta in A.D. 989 led to even closer cooperation between Java and Bali. Airlangga (991 - 1046) was born to the royal couple around 1001. As a young man, the prince was sent to Java for his education. There, Airlangga married a princess and became a local shief in a kingdom of his uncle Dharma Wangsa. Shortly after Airlangga's arrival, Wangsa was attacked by the forces of Sriwijaya and murdered. Airlangga ascended to the throne, becoming one of the most glorious monarchs in Java history.

The dynasty he put in place centralized and less Indianized than any up to that time-lasted for more than 300 years. As befits an Indic hero, Airlangga ultimately renounced the kingdom he would made great and died a hermit under the guidance of his spiritual adviser.

A fascinating legend relates how Airlangga's kingdom was nearly destroyed by a plague supposedly brought by the dreadful witch Rangda, queen of evil spirits. According to some historians, Rangda was Airlangga's own mother, Mahendradatta, whom her husband had sent into the jungle for practicing black magic.

Other theorists maintain Rangda sought revenge against Airlangga because he did not side with her when his father took a second wife. Out of the mythical struggle between the magic of the witch and that of the great king arose the legend of Calon Arang, depicted today in Bali's barong dance. Rangda, who died relatively early in life, is thought to be buried in a tomb near Kutri. In Balinese myth she is forever associated with witchcraft.

The Bali Warmadewa Dynasty

Bali first came under the influence of Indic Javanese kings in the 6th to 8th centuries. The island was conquered by the first documented king of Central Java, Sanjaya, in 732; stone and copper inscriptions in Old Balinese have been found that date from A.D. 882.

From the 10th to the 12th centuries, the Balinese Warmadewa family established a dynastic link with Java. Court decrees were thereafter issued in the Old Javanese language of Kawi and Balinese sculpture, bronzes, and other artistic styles, bathing places, and rock-out temples began to resemble those in East Java. The Sanur pillar (A.D. 914), partly written in Sankrit, supports the theory that portions of the island were already Indianized in the 10th century.

Bali's way of life was well defined by the early part of the 10th century. By then, the Balinese were engaged in sophisticated wet-rice cultivation, livestock breeding, stone and woodcarving metalworking, roof thatching, canoe building, even cockfighting. The Balinese of the time were locked into feudal genealogical and territorial bondage.

They were subjects of an autocratic Hinduized ruler one of a number of regional Balinese princes, who himself acknowledged the sovereignty of a Javanese overlord.

History of Bali - Klungkung, Karangasem, Gianyar

In 14 century, Pejeng is one of the biggest Kingdom in Bali, located around Ubud area. In 1343, Dalem Bedaulu as the king were failed by Majapahit Kingdom. The capital city than moved to Gelgel, near Samarapura or already famaous with the name of Klungkung. On the next two century Gelgel is the capital city which is lead by the King of Dewa Agung.

When Majapahit kingdom collapse and Islam begin grow up in Java, Gelgel dynasti in Bali whose lead by the king of Dalem Batur Enggong was success in widen his power to Lombok and even East Java. At the same time with the collapse of Majapahit kingdom, some smart peoples including the artist move to Bali island. The biggest immigration Majapahit peoples to Bali was happen in 1478.

In 1710, the capital city of Gelgel was moved to near of Klungkung. On this period some chaos was always happening. This situation than used by Dutch to entering Bali and begin their bad politic, devide at empera.

Three princess from Badung kingdom realize that they cannot win against Dutch. But they never want to give up and keep fighting till the end. Around 4.000 peoples in the deadly battle, that now we recognize it as Puputan Battle, which mean fight until dead.

Dutch after winning the battle against Badung kingdom, than trying to move to the east, entering Tabanan kingdom. This kingdom was easily collapsed. Other two kingdoms, that is Karangasem and Gianyar then was also easy to knocked out. Since then Dutch colonial has absolute power on Bali.