"Pendet Dance" Beauty Dance From Bali

Pendet dance is one of the oldest welcome dances on the Bali island. Dancing this dance has become an inseparable part of the spiritual life of the Hindu community in Bali. Balinese performing arts experts, based on several existing records, agree that 1950 was the birth year of Pendet dance. Not only when welcoming important guests, in every Balinese dance performance, this dance is always used as part of the opening dance.

This type of welcoming dance is performed by a group of young women who each carry a silver bowl of colorful flowers. And at the end of the dance, the dancers sprinkle the flowers they bring to the audience or guests who are welcomed, as a welcome greeting.

In the beginning, Pendet was used as a complement to the piodalan ceremony in the temples or family shrines, as a symbol of gratitude, respect and joy when welcoming the presence of the gods who descended from khayangan.

The initiators of this dance are two artists born in Sumertha village, Denpasar, namely I Wayan Rindi and Ni Ketut Reneng. Both of them created a welcoming Pendet dance with four dancers staged as part of a tourism performance in a number of hotels in Denpasar, Bali. And in 1961, I Wayan Beratha developed this dance and increased the number of dancers to five, as is often shown now.

In 1962, I Wayan Beratha and friends again developed Pendet Dance which was mass-danced, the number of dancers was not less than 800 people, and was displayed at the opening ceremony of the Asian Games in Jakarta.