Honoring The Goddesses: Sang Hyang Dedari

“Honoring The Goddesses: Sang Hyang Dedari” is about relation between human and nature that belongs in a well-known Indonesia’s paradise and the Island of Gods, Bali. It was the roots of Balinese dances, a well-known sacred ritual that was practiced across the island to repel disease and bless the harvest, but as it becomes less relevant, only one remain survives. The island inhabitants slowly left their core of philosophy, leaving the island built by massive concrete to please the world’s hunger for pleasure. Sang Hyang Dedari becomes a lesson about, a lifestyle that is so primal, but could possibly be the option of environmental issue that rises along with mass tourism. The project becomes a witness on struggle to preserve a communal identity within the fast changing modern lifestyle that competes to reap profits from other’s visitation.

When the rice paddy has grained, Sang Hyang Dedari is held at a village in the slope of Mt. Agung, Geriana Kauh. Geriana Kauh has become the only village where Sang Hyang Dedari sacred ritual is successfully revived after more than 30 years of absence. During the ritual absence, the village agriculture was damaged by pests, drought, and the harvest was not fruitful, the villagers admit they had experienced harvesting empty rice grains.

Sang Hyang Dedari sacred ritual ‘performed’ by girls who haven’t reached their puberty. The girls danced during trance; moving wildly with their eyes closed alongside the chanting (gending), without practice and without formation. The movement is a movement of heart-arises without consideration-which is believed to be triggered by the Goddesses that possessed the girls' bodies.

The project wants to answer on question how the generation of youth in Geriana Kauh village sees the culture, would they still practice the sacred ritual in the next years to come? Along with the ‘cultural tourism’ in Bali, would Sang Hyang Dedari ritual remains held for its original purpose?