Bali Arts Festival

Art and Culture Festival in Bali

The Bali Arts Festival takes place during the mid-year for one month in Denpasar and held on a yearly basis. If you have not witnessed this beautiful event, I would recommend you make a date in Bali around June and July.

This amazing Balinese event is called the Bali Arts and Culture Festival, and the first time I experienced this was back in 2011, where I was in awe with the amount of local culture and heritage on display in Denpasar. 

Bali Arts and Culture Festival

Festival Art Bali
A local in his traditional costume during the festival
At this unique and colorful festival, groups from various tribes and cultures from around Bali, Indonesia will take part in their traditional ethnic costumes.

From beautiful sweet Balinese women in colorful attire to fiercely made up men, this festival is bound to amaze you in all kinds of ways. 

Huge effigies are often seen by some of the groups where some of them can be quite scary. Kind of like the ones used in the Nyepi Festival, which is another massive event that takes place every early March. 

Each tribe or group consists of about 10 to 50 participants who line up and wait their turn in parading in front of the main stage where officials and VIPs are seated.

When I was there the attend the previous Arts Festival in Bali, it was held at a huge local field which could accommodate thousands of people in Denpasar.

It was indeed a sight to see and, I have to thank the Diwangkara Holiday Villa staff for introducing me to this event, as I would have never known about it.

Traditional Costume Balinese Man
A local Balinese in full makeup and costume
The best part - I could count the number of foreigners or tourists on one hand when I was there. Not many people know about the 'Openang Parade' therefore I was fortunate enough to have witnessed it.

Camera in hand, I blended in with the local journalist and photographers and ended up running all over the massive field as there were people dressed in costumes everywhere.

My movement was chaotic as everywhere I looked, there was something new to see and photograph. To summarize it, I took about 3000 photos of this event which started at about 10.00 am till late in the afternoon and until I ran out of batteries!

So this time around, I hope to be there again, with more batteries, lenses and a better camera. If you are going for this and see me there, don't be a stranger and say hello to me.

I end this with a series of photographs which I took back then. Click on the pictures or the full image.

Balinese Girls in Traditional Costume
 Scenes at the Bali Arts Festival

Photography of Bali Arts Festival
 Some unique Indonesian ethnic costumes

The Bali Arts Festival official website has yet to update the information for this year's festival,  and hopefully, they do it. Anyway, here is an excerpt of what the festival is all about.
"The Bali Arts Festival is a full month of daily performances, handicraft exhibitions and other related cultural and commercial activities during which literally the whole of Bali comes to the city to present its offerings of dance, music and beauty. 
On display are trances from remote mountain slopes, forgotten or recently revived village dances, food and offering contests, classical palace dances, stars of Balinese stage, odd musical performances, "kreasi baru" (new creations) from the dance schools of
Denpasar, as well as contemporary choreography and dance companies from other islands and from abroad.
 
Denpasar, as well as contemporary choreography and dance companies from other islands and from abroad. 
The Bali Arts Festival is the Denpasar cultural event of the year, perhaps it would no be too far fetched to suggest that it is the cultural event of Indonesia. The festival is thus a unique opportunity to see local village culture both "live" and at first hand. Tourists are warmly welcomed."

Dayak Kalimantan
A Kalimantan Dayak in traditional costume
Conclusion

If you are a photography enthusiast or love taking photos of people and cultures, this is one event in Bali that you should not miss. Make sure you follow the protocol when you are here, and respect the people.

I hope you enjoyed the photos and you can view more of these pictures on my Malaysia Asia Facebook Page while I also hope that you can make it for the next Bali Arts Festival.

Malaysia Asia

Blogging since 2007, but writing online since 1997. I belong to the 1st generation of worldwide bloggers, which is of course old-school. Since 2008, I created Malaysia Asia and this travel, flood, gadget and lifestyle blog has won numerous physical awards from tourism boards around Malaysia. (Not those online awards). After 12 years of blogging, I have semi-retired and now blog about things I like, do product reviews and enjoy life. My work has been featured in Lonely Planet, CNN Travel, Yahoo Travel, Wall Street Journal, and many other international publications. Find out more about me and thank you.

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