Rejang Asak at Manis Kuningan Day

If you want to see hundreds of girls dance around the villages in their best attire then you have to visit the village of Asak in Karangasem Regency on Manis Kuningan Day. Once every 210 day, a unique ritual is held in this village. Hundreds of Rejang dancers in their Payas Agung (grand attire) dance around the village (ngelawang), while dancing, they sing a prayer for the prosperity of the village. All the dancers are teenage girl or girls that have not married yet. They ceased to become dancers when they get married.

The dancers dance around the village in file formation.  The senior dancers dance in the front while the junior dancers dance on the back imitating the senior’s movements.  The dancers are linked each to each by sash; a dancer holds the sash that is worn by the dancer in front of her.

Rejang dance is conducted in slow procession style, the dancers move with extreme grace and delicacy. It is a dignified and elegant affair. Compare to other Balinese dances, rejang is the most dream-like dance, surpassing all one can imagine of smooth, unending motion.  The movement of rejang appears very simple, but is really bafflingly complicated an as impossible to analyze in words as the running of a hound or the swimming of a fish, for all parts of the movement are so involved in one another that there is no moment when any could actually be said begin or end.