Joged Dance

Bali has many traditional dances and one of the most fun is the joged bumbung. Tourists will often see and participate in a joged dance. The joged is a flirtation dance and a solo female dancer will select men from the audience with a tap on the shoulder with her fan. Back in 1937 during Miguel Covarrubias's time in Bali, before the onrush of mass tourism, the joged was popular. Here is his description.

The joged is great fun as westerners are allowed to join in. The female dancer selects people at random, by offering a ribbon to be wrapped around their waste. When you are chosen you get 2-3 minutes. Joged has been around for a while and Miguel Covarrubias mentions it back in 1935.

A very popular dance that seems related to the legong is the djoged (joged), performed by a girl in a variation of the legong costume and in the traditional legong steps. The dance is considered erotic by the Balinese because the girl entices the men from the audience by “making eyes” at them during the course of the dance. The man invited must dance wit her in postures that represent a love game of approach and refusal (nibing), in which the man tries to come near enough to the girl’s face to catch her perfume and feel the warmth of her skin, the Balinese form of a kiss. As the audience becomes worked up, other men “cut in” and dance with her. I have seen performances of djoged that had an intoxicating effect on the crowd, especially in the more decadent form called gandrung, when it is a boy in girl’s clothes that performs. Fights among the men of the audience at gandrung dances are not unheard of, a procedure which is extremely un-Balinese. The djoged could easily be a modernized, decadent version of the ancient mating dance still to be found in thre village of Tenganan, stronghold of native tradition.

When there is a celebration in a hamlet meeting hall or house compound, joged bungbung is one of few sought after social dances that is used to entertain audience and bring more festivity to the celebration.

Joged Bungbung on The Annual Bali Arts Festival 2006

The name joged bungbung derives from the word joged that means “dance” – joged bungbungjoged - and the word bungbung refers to a length of hollow bamboo. Unlike the bronze-keyed, xylophone – like instrument of musical group that accompany most of the performance, the keys of this ensemble are turned length of the bamboo, struck with rubber-covered mallet held in both hands. The music is very soft and mellow. One may hear it played by a soloist as background music at restaurant. But the joged bungbung group consists of half a dozen or more of these instrument, some very large bass xylophones, several of medium size, and tiny ones to ornament the melody. There are also drums and cymbal like ceng-cengs. Since it has no religious connection, joged is now popular lobby entertainment at many of the larger hotels.
dancer is also called

The Joged dance like its performed here, is allmost never seen by tourists. The style is very erotic, and the boys often try to touch certain body parts of the girl dancers. The movements both dancers make, refer very openly to the act of making love, and some simple acting of problems that may occur in marriage is performed.

Eventhough the nature of the dance is very explicit, children and elderly all enjoy it, and there is no shame shown in any way.

The men have to draw numbers, to get their turn with one of the dancers. Usually there are 4 to 5 girls in the troop, and there are a few of those troops of girls, including Gamelan Orchestra cruising the North of Bali doing these kind of performances.