Date: Friday, November 25th at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating - RSVP to:
415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com
Featuring:
Trance and
Dance in Bali (1937-39)
The film was produced by Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead and records a
performance of the Balinese ceremonial kris (dagger) dance-drama, which depicts
the never-ending struggle between witch (death-dealing) and dragon
(life-protecting), as it was given in the village of Pagoetan in the late
1930s. The dancers experience violent trance seizures, turn their krises
against their breasts without injury, and are restored to consciousness with
incense and holy water. Narrated by famed anthropologist Margaret Mead against
a background of Balinese music. This “ecstatic ethnography” was an
extraordinary effort to use film and photography in the field, and the
precursor to much of the visual anthropology that has gone on since then
Ma’Bugi: Trance
of the Toraja This film
depicts an unusual trance ritual that functions to restore the balance of
well-being to an afflicted village community. The film communicates both the
psychological abandon of the trance state and the often neglected motivation
underlying activities such as the ascent of a ladder of knives and the
supernatural curing of the chronically ill. Ma’Bugi portrays the song,
dance and pulsating tension that precede dramatic instances of spirit
possession in the Toraja highlands Sulawesi (Celebes) Island, Indonesia.
Belles of
Bali (1930s)
Featuring:
Island of
the Spirits (1970s)
Among the
Hindus of Bali, cremation is thought to release the soul for its journey to
Nirwana. The joyous and spectacular ceremony shown in Island of the Spirits is
reserved for high-born princes today. Hugely costly, the preparations for the
cremation of Prince Sudharsana include the building of fantastic effigies and a
tower nine stories high. Eight hundred men carry the tower in procession
through the hundred thousand celebrants. The body of his small granddaughter
and the souls of twenty-seven villagers accompany the prince. At the close of
this long and auspicious day, when towers and effigies together with coffins,
food, money, and incense have long been consumed by flames, when the crowds
have departed, the ashes of the dead will be cast into the sea. Only then will
the newly liberated spirits rise unrestrained to join the heavenly soul of all
the universe, Nirwana.
Ma’Bugi: Trance
of the Toraja This film
depicts an unusual trance ritual that functions to restore the balance of
well-being to an afflicted village community. The film communicates both the
psychological abandon of the trance state and the often neglected motivation
underlying activities such as the ascent of a ladder of knives and the
supernatural curing of the chronically ill. Ma’Bugi portrays the song,
dance and pulsating tension that precede dramatic instances of spirit
possession in the Toraja highlands Sulawesi (Celebes) Island, Indonesia.
A Balinese
Gong Orchestra (1971)
A film
explaining the famous "Gamelan Gong" that includes the orchestra
Tunjuk. Each instrument is described and explained, then the orchestra performs
a piece taken from the Ramayana ballet suite (written in the 1950s and based on
traditional themes). An excellent introduction to this kind of strange and
exciting music to Western ears.
Belles of
Bali (1930s)
An unusual
curio examining the female culture and day to day activities of “exotified”
Balinese women.