Word: legong
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...visitors fortified by optimism and durability. Accommodations are poor and government officials often both inept and insolent, but there are wonderful drives from the seedy capital of Djakarta through jungle-clad hills to cool Bandung and Bogor. Bali has two good hotels and is always lively with festivals, cockfights, legong dances and gala cremations. Burma is not much like Kipling's description of it, but Mandalay, Pagan and Rangoon have thousands of superb Buddhist monasteries and gold-domed temples alive with tinkling silver bells. With newer and better hotels, steadily improving plane service and a gradual understanding of visitors...
Star of the show is Ni Gusti Raka, twelve. Her big moment comes in the classical Legong, in which she dances in an intricate trio for about five minutes, suddenly breaks off (at home in Bali, this part of the dance might last an hour), trots offstage like any twelve-year-old, and returns with a pair of golden wings to portray the Bird of Evil Omen...
Young as nymphs are the temple dancers in Bali. At 12 they are too old for the temple, retire and usually marry. But when Temple-dancer Devi Dja (pronounced Davy Jah) was dancing the Legong in Klunklung,* the late, great Anna Pavlowa visited neighboring Java for a couple of concerts, and round-faced Dancer Devi Dja went to see her dance. Result: Devi Dja decided that 12 was over-young to quit. So she collected a group of other aging temple-dancers, started giving commercial performances for visiting tourists. Two years ago Devi Dja's dancers toured Java...
...seacoast region famous for its arts and crafts. The Legong: a ceremonial dance in which two or three girls enact an incident from Hindu mythology...
...that the acting is undistinguished would be to miss the point of the film--the chief feature of which is the superb photography. Bali is, of course, a paradise for workers in color, and the cameraman for Legong made the most of his opportunities. Maidens bathing at dawn in pale green pools, beats putting out to sea at dusk, cockfights, dances and gaudy funerals appear in all their natural beauty of color and action...