 Kecak is a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and
is performed primarily by men. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant,
the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing
checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting “cak” and
throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where the
monkey-like Vanara helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana.
However, Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism
dance.[1]
Kecak was originally a trance ritual accompanied by male chorus.
German painter and musician Walter Spies became deeply interested in the
ritual while living in Bali in the 1930s and worked to recreate it into
a drama, based on the Hindu Ramayana and including dance, intended to
be presented to Western tourist audiences. This transformation is an
example of what James Clifford describes as part of the “modern
art-culture system”[2] in which, “the West or the central power adopts,
transforms, and consumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements,
while making ‘art’ which was once embedded in the culture as a whole,
into a separate entity.”[3] Spies worked with Wayan Limbak and Limbak
popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese
performance groups. These travels have helped to make the Kecak famous
throughout the world.
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