Soegee Sugiarto | Tari Kecak

Here is Tari Kecak, a multimedia project produced in its entirety by Soegee Sugiarto during my The Travel Documentary : Sound & Image class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Bali. The project was produced in class using Soundslides software, and the audio editing program Audacity.

The Tari Kecak dance was created in the early 1930s, and is now internationally recognized as one of Bali’s top-three signature dances, along with Barong and Legong.

Kecak has no musical background but for the chanting of a male capella chorus intoning a “keh-chack” polyrhythmic sound during most of the performance. Kecak’s storyline is taken from the Ramayana Hindu epic which it depicts in summary form. The men wear black-and-white sarongs and are seated in tight, concentric circles with a central space reserved for the protagonists.

According to Wikipedia, Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance.

In the 1930s, Walter Spies, a Russian-German painter and musician, became deeply interested in the ritual while living in Bali, and adapted the epic drama to a dance.

Sugiarto "Soegee" Sugiarto is a sales manager and a photographer from Jawa Barat, Indonesia who describes himself as a "hobbyist". However, this "hobbyist" won first prize in the Travel Photographer Asia contest with his monochrome image of a Pacu Jawi racer with his buffalos during a traditional bull race in Sumatra.