MPavilion Opening November 2020

MMeets
Kecak Dance: The Vocal Chanting of Bali

MPavilion

Free!

This event is now complete. If you want to revisit the talk, visit our Library, or subscribe to the MPavilion podcast via iTunes, Pocketcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

The Kecak dance of Bali is one of the most iconic performing arts in the world. A communal artistic form, known to the Western world as “The Monkey Dance,” Kecak integrates vocal music, dance and drama. The ultimate artistic beauty of Kecak lies in its intricate vocal chanting. The complex and multi-layered sounds of “cak-cak-cak” chanted by the chorus into various rhythmic patterns is at once the essence and the soul of Kecak.

Since 2016, Kecak has been introduced to theatre students at the Victorian College of the Arts, who are based at the Southbank campus of the University of Melbourne. Under the training and direction of esteemed Balinese Kecak master, I Wayan Dibia, this Kecak dance performance is the first to be performed by students in Australia.

Wominjeka (Welcome). We acknowledge the Yaluk-ut Weelam as the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet. Yaluk-ut Weelam means ‘people of the river camp’ and is connected with the coastal land at the head of Port Phillip Bay, extending from the Werribee River to Mordialloc. The Yaluk-ut Weelam are part of the Boon Wurrung, one of the five major language groups of the greater Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to the land, their ancestors and their elders—past, present and to the future.