In June of 2015 the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum, which has a special focus on the glorious and multifaceted diversity of Asian art and culture, released a short promotional film featuring performances of unique forms of dance from various Asian locales. There was one particularly beautiful dancer whose upper body was wrapped in a tight-fitting golden brocade garment, matched with a red skirt and white scarf. She moved with great elegance and delicacy. She was the film’s representative of Indonesia, the Balinese dancer Ni Ketut Juni Artini.

 

Married and living in Taiwan, “Artini” was transliterated to create her Chinese name, Ting-li. (Her husband is surnamed Lee, so she is Lee Ting-li.) “Juni,” which she prefers to go by, refers to her birth in June, and “Ketut” describes her place as the fourth child in the family. She comes from a truly large family with 12 siblings in all, and she is the youngest daughter.

Ni Ketut Juni Artini’s determined gaze expresses a unique beauty and ­ self-confidence.

To Taiwan for love

Juni met her husband Lee Pei-ching in Bali. In his younger days, Lee ran a business on the island. Juni was a neighbor, and he was smitten by her. Although Juni liked him, she had never considered having a relationship with a foreigner. What’s more, she was the family’s youngest daughter, a fact that made her parents just that much more reluctant to see her carried off to a foreign land. In the end, Lee delivered 99 roses on Juni’s birthday, and she finally agreed to marry him. The original plan was to live in Bali, but Lee was an only son, and his parents insisted that he should come back to Taiwan. It would cause Juni to shift tracks in life.

When she first came to Taiwan, she faced a language barrier and wasn’t used to the culture or the food. What’s more, unintended hurtful comments by some people she encountered bothered her deeply. Consequently, she barely stepped outside her home for 13 years. Memories of this period of her life still cause her pain today. Ultimately, it was dancing again that gave her back her joy and confidence and allowed her once more to face crowds.

Dancing restores self-esteem

During her first decade in Taiwan, Juni kept herself busy at home. It wasn’t until a good friend invited her to join a sisterhood of Indonesian immigrant women that she finally ventured outside and started interacting with people. She found a sense of belonging there.

Traditionally, Balinese dancers wear richly colorful red garments ornamented with gold leaf. They’re extremely beautiful.

Her Indonesian “sisters” knew that she was an expert dancer, so they encouraged her to show her talents to more people. When she gathered her courage to get back up on stage, that Juni of the past, confident and beautiful, was reborn. With the consent of her family, Juni threw herself into promotion of Balinese culture and began to accept invitations to perform throughout Taiwan. She even turned her basement into a dance studio, where she teaches classes. She will teach anyone with an interest in Balinese dance.

The meaning behind beautiful poses

Juni is a strict teacher. She has high standards and expects her students to learn proper movements. The tradition of Balinese dance has been passed down from generation to generation. Every individual dance has its own choreography and costumes. Juni pays strict attention to posture, the body’s curvature while in motion, and the expressiveness of the eyes. She strictly critiques every gesture in the hope that students can capture the stunning beauty of the genre.

Wearing their dancing outfits, with frangipani flowers in their made-up hair, mother and daughter have reunited after more than a decade to dance together once again. (courtesy of Ni Ketut Juni Artini)

Beginners find it difficult to synchronize their movements to the music. Traditional Balinese music doesn’t have a clear beat, but the choreography nonetheless follows the music, as one moves one’s head to the sound of the drum. There are different musical cues to trigger a variety of gestures with the eyes, the fingers, the neck, and the feet. From a young age, Juni grew accustomed to these melodies and movements. When she hears the music, her body automatically responds to its rhythms. But beginners, struggling to count out a beat, won’t move correctly. The only way to learn is to play the music over and over so that the dancer eventually becomes fully immersed and at one with it. 

Juni hopes that the general public will gain a greater understanding of the meaning behind Balinese dance. Legong dance, which is the foundation of all Balinese dance, is concerned with conveying the quintessence of feminine elegance. Everything else in the Balinese dance repertoire extends from that. According to tradition, only prepubescent girls could perform legong, and they could perform it only at the royal court. But with political reforms and the development of tourism, these restrictions no longer hold.   

Juni also hopes that Taiwanese will delve deeper into Balinese culture, seeing with their eyes and with their hearts what is so captivating about traditional Balinese dance.

Passing down living dance

In Taiwan Juni has gained renown for her dancing and has been the subject of major media reports. In particular, Taiwan’s Public Television Service has sent her back to her old home in Bali on assignment, arranging to have her dance with her mother. The mother and daughter conveyed their deep love for each other through their expressive glances. Many viewers found these scenes deeply moving. Juni says that the experience was both difficult and exciting for her. Her mother is almost 90, and the program may well have been the last time that mother and daughter ever dance together. Her mother had been dead set against her move to Taiwan years ago, and Juni will always feel a deep sense of guilt about that.

Lee Chia-ling has been studying dance with her mother since she was a student in junior high school. Today they perform together.

Juni’s mastery of dance was fostered at a basic level by her mother. It was she who gave Juni an understanding of the joy that is the essence of dance. And in Taiwan Juni has passed this cultural inheritance along to her own daughter Lee Chia-ling. Chia-ling started studying dance in junior high school. Having inherited her mother’s talent for dance, her motions and eye movements are already quite refined. She explains that when she was in elementary school, she felt socially inferior. But as she grew up she came to understand that half of her blood was Balinese, and she began to identify with and value her mother’s culture. She is now studying tourism at I-Shou University, where she is active in the dance club. In the future she hopes to find a career that brings together her course of study and her dance expertise. With strong-minded women such as her, it would appear that the transmission of cultural diversity will only grow stronger in Taiwan’s next generation. 

Outside of university, Chia-ling performs with her mother in various venues. When mother and daughter perform together, you can see in Juni’s face not only the confidence of a professional dancer, but also a mother’s pride that her daughter is identifying with her culture. For Juni, nothing compares to it.

The dance of life

Dance became a way for Juni to become part of Taiwan society, and has given her life new motivation. Juni says that if she had stayed in Bali and raised her children there, she might have stopped dancing, just as her own mother did. It may well be that it is only because she moved to Taiwan that she continued with dance performance—and she feels very blessed that she has.

In 2014 Juni’s diligence and immersion in the world of dance earned her a government award given to “new immigrants” of distinction. The commendation brought more attention to her contributions as a dancer. In the dance of life, Juni is a brilliant performer, as striking as the birds of paradise that are so often subjects of Balinese dance.