Hello blog readers! I’m back for my second blog, going through Day 7(?) of our Embedded Study Abroad Program in Bali, Indonesia! What a day it’s been! I started the day by waking up to my watch buzzing for about 10 minutes after having a dream in which my watch would not stop buzzing and with a sore quad from yesterday’s adventures!
Image: Thomas Beach in Uluwatu, Bali,
Indonesia
We started our rehearsal with a reflection upon and a sharing with the group about the Wayang Kulit performances by Dalang Widja and our free days. As a quick summary for both, the Wayang Kulit performance is a traditional shadow-puppet performance, in which the shadows of puppets and other figures are projected onto a white fabric screen using a coconut lamp. As for the free day, I spent most of that exploring beaches in Sanur and Uluwatu and concluded the day with a Kecak and fire dance performance. I think there was a general consensus on how impressed and honored we were to be able to watch these performances and how beautiful each thing we saw was, whether that be the puppets themselves, the beaches, or the performances we watched.
Image: scene from Wayang Culit, a shadow puppet show
We then returned to instruction in small groups with two different instruments: the selunding, an iron Gamelan instrument, and the gender wayang, also another Gamelan instrument. Both instruments require playing and dampening with one hand, which was really tricky for me, as I tended to overthink every move my hands made. I was in the selunding group and we continued our piece from yesterday. Even though I had forgotten a little bit of it, the instructors were super kind about reteaching, and we even started learning something different than what we had yesterday! After, we switched our parts, and I started playing the melody – I definitely struggled with the coordination of dampening and playing the next note at the same time, but, as per usual, the instructors were still really patient!
Before lunch, we practiced our piece Gengongan a couple of times, but I still struggled with the timing of some parts of the piece. After lunch, we learned two more instruments: suling, a traditional Balinese bamboo flute, and kendang, or Balinese drums.
Image: kendang set up for a class at Çudamani
And finally, after rehearsal, Jiho ‘26 and I headed to the Tegenungan Waterfall about a 15-minute drive away, and, as per usual, it was super beautiful. We also got dinner together near Puri Kobot at a restaurant called Warung Makan Bahagia!
Image: Tegenungan waterfall
Image: dinner from Warung Makan Bahagia, which serves traditional Indonesian food
We have just a week left in this trip, which is so crazy – I guess time flies when you’re having fun 🙂
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