Merak Angelo Dance Bali - A Beautiful Peacock Dance Of Bali -
This dance is performed by female dancer, usually done by two dancers or more (in groups). This is categorized as balih-balihan dance, as a dance to entertain the audience, enliven an event, level rise exam, performing arts and also during ritual ceremonies.
The general theme of the dance depicts male peacocks which dancing, showing its beautiful and colorful feathers, and flying all around the place trying to attract the attention of female birds.
This is all about male peacock showing its feather, not so difficult. But it has a lot of movements and needs a high concentration in hips. The swaying of the hips or “ngegol” in Balinese, make the dance more feminine and sensual, to impress the female bird. This is a nice blend of beauty, sensuality and happiness.
This dance choreography seeks to present a simple dance but still beautiful and exotic. This dance is said not only displays traditional Balinese dance movements, but also contains elements adapted from other traditional Indonesian dance forms such as Tari Jawa and Jaipong.
This dance is accompanied by the traditional musical instrument of Balinese gamelan, with soft and a lot of melodious from bamboo flute, called “suling”. This is a beautiful Balinese traditional dance, blends harmoniously in the melody of gamelan musical. This makes the atmosphere livelier, cheerful and the audience happy.
The dancers wear beautiful costumes that are a little complicated but harmonious. This is an interesting blend of colors, which enhancing the beauty of the performance. The dancers wear gelungan or headpiece, which is made of carved leather, resembling the head of a peacock and completed with some imitation peacock feathers attached on it. A beautiful pair of "subeng" decorates the ears, and also "badong" on the neck.
In the middle is covered by ankin (bodice) with gold prada print. The "tutup dada" is curled from the front and the two ends are held together on the back with pins. The “gelang kana" adorns the dancer's arms and wrists.
At the lower part the dancers wear knee-breeches (knee length trousers) which are covered again with layers of gold-clothed fabric. The "ampok-ampok" coiled around the waist, became an accent that unites the costume of the upper and lower part of dancer body.
The dancer also wore a special cloth ornament with the motif resembling peacock tail feathers, giving the appearance of the beauty and glorious feathers. The dancer will spread it and looks like a stretch of male peacock's tail feathers when it attracts the attention of the female, followed by a beautiful dancer movement. This dance artwork is truly awesome and amazes everyone who witnessed it.