Steps

I went to Bali to study dance-drama.

At the airport a tiny Balinese man greets me with an instant smile when I approach him. He’s holding a sign that makes me blush: "Todorut – USA." I’m not American but I'm white so it's all the same.

Our bodies precede us.

The car reaches Batuan village, where Nyoman Artha, the entrepreneurial son of famous dancer I Made Djimat, established an arts foundation. The whole clan dances, from Djimat’s octogenarian, smiling Buddha-faced mother, to the five-year-old crown jewel, Nyoman’s son.

In Bali, the climate is so gentle that anger and impatience are considered impolite.

Before and after each lesson or performance, Djimat sits cross-legged in front of a small incensed shrine and prays to Shiva Nataraja, the god that dances the world away into annihilation. With palms downward, the tip of the fingers touching the ground, he prays to the demons, the subterranean spirits. As Djimat turns his palms upward he repeats the mantra, this time directed to life-giving "Mother Grass." Hands clasped together, the thumb of the right hand circles around the chest chakra, one time for each of our four "friends": skin, bone, red blood, white blood.

“Djimat, what is white blood?”

“When we make love.”

There’s the daily physical pain of five-hour-long dance lessons. I’ve learned to sway my head in a number of ways, to rotate my eyes, to alternate quick and slow movements. I find it hard to maintain tension and correct movements of all my body parts at once: if I concentrate on my feet and hands, I forget about the head, if I remember the head, my feet fall wrongly on the floor. The first thing I’m taught is how to stand. The second is how to walk. And Djimat complains that I don’t smile when I dance.

Dinners often trail though dusk into the night, scented by clove cigarettes. Nyoman was often employed by famous Western directors to star in intercultural productions. It takes many nights until behind the pride and gratitude of employment, something altogether different peers out. With the ever-required smile, I finally dare to ask him how it feels to dance on European stages.

“I wasn’t giving my 100% Balinese feeling,” quietly says Nyoman. “100% Balinese would not have mixed. To tell you the truth, I still don’t understand what I’m doing when I dance the performances abroad. And I don’t know what is the feeling of the people watching me.”

Our bodies precede us. Nyoman smiles.