Ogoh Ogoh is a giant beast creature made of bamboos,papers, styrofoam, with sometimes metal frame for the huge and robust shape ones. It’s a work of art done by youth villagers community called Sekaa Taruna (you will therefore notice each group of parade carrying the sign of respective Sekaa Taruna/ST), and making Ogoh ogoh does also mean a togetherness among the Balinese youth community, a competition among Banjars – village community, and a business!

I’ve been experiencing Nyepi and its Ogoh Ogoh Parade for 10 times now, due to some circumstances Bart & I decided to cancel our Gili Meno trip and just stay and book a nice clean minimalist hotel room just in the heart of Denpasar city change our Jimbaran air a little bit and relax, and do nothing!

From the classic Ramayana and other Hindu epic heroes, to demon faces, even the funkiest and cartoonic ones, people is always enthusiast waiting patiently for Ogoh Ogoh parade. Like I said before, for the Banjar community this means a competition. For the locals watching it, it’s a free street entertainment! For the tourists this is one cultural event not to be missed. For the street vendors this is business..Moi? I keep telling myself I needed to get out of the island on Nyepi Day, had enough of these beasts, but here I am with @bartcatapult still amazed with the creativity young balinese do mixing traditional culture with current colorful crazy designs..

Here are more shots from Bart from the 1933..errr..I mean 2011 Ogoh Ogoh Festival on Jalan Teuku Umar, Simpang  Enam, Denpasar a while ago.

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But you will not feel that way when you are in this beautiful ARMA Museum in Ubud. It’s not just A museum. It’s the place for visual and performing arts on a beautiful landscape, so gorgeous that you can’t stop posing like a model every time you see a beautiful spot and background, just like I did, and for Bart, it’s the photography momento great spot too. I have a best friend living in Bandung, the capital of West Java, named Arma too, and she asked me what kind of place ARMA Museum is in Bali, naming it with her nick name Hmm….Java tourists should explore Ubud more than it’s Bebek Bengil or Suckling pig Ibu Oka..

And yes, you will definitely see hundreds marvelous paintings from various painters here: locals and foreigners,f rom all period of time! They also held some special temporary exhibitions,cultural workshops, theater performances, dance and music. Oh, you should check out their schedule of Mepantigan-a balinese mixed martial arts. Of course they organise painting classes, seminars and training programs.And they also have bookshop, library and reading room located on the left wing of the lobby to check out, when you’re finished touring this place and heading back to their main entrance door.

Seriously, the painting collections here are just spectacular for me. Some balinese people & culture in the past painted there,made me wonder how great is one’ talent gifted by the Creator of art they are able to make such dramatic detailed balinese life..A Big woww…

The friendly and smiley tour guide or more correctly the museum care taker showed us the stairways down to the ARMA MUSEUM (formerly Kokokan Hotel) to arrive at this nice small tranquil and peaceful resort.

We were greeted first by the (again) friendly and big smiley face staff who were happy to let us just touring around the beautiful garden and lotus pond of this hotel complex. When you book one of their room, I could suggest to choose the one that has a terrace with a flowing dazzling river just in front of it, overlooking rice terrace too.

Like they said : it’s a unique and meditative ambience surrounded by lush tropical garden and rice terrace offering comfort and peaceful for family living. They have in total 23 units rooms only, and the price on the website, yes, it’s a bit expensive, you may try book through your local travel agent that have a contract with this resort, they must be able to offer you a much better price. Try also to google several Bali based travel online.

For the love of art and its preservation, and for the purpose of sharing it with the community, Bapak Agung Rai, with his wife, the owner of ARMA Museum, Ubud, built this place to reflect his philosophy. I could really see and feel his passion here, we all definitely could..

ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Art) MUSEUM
JL. PENGOSEKAN, UBUD, GIANYAR 80571
BALI, INDONESIA
Phone: 0361)975742
FAX: (62 0361) 975332
E-mail : info@armamuseum.com
Website : www.armamuseum.com & www.armaresort.com

Location map :

Bart and I really love to go to a big cultural or sports event as an photography occasion for him, and as a cultural experience for me. Bali is not only about hang out with friends and icy cold beers (although it’s also very nice!), sun bathing on the white sand beach. Ceremony such as ‘Ngaben‘ (Balinese cremation) is very often one of the main tourist attraction, specially when a royal family died, it must be HUGE!.

But one special thing about watching the parade of Pesta Kesenian Bali or Bali Arts Festival Opening is you got to witness the BEAUTY of Balinese dance, costume and musical performance…from all the regency of the island. It’s soo.. gorgeously colorful! and I never stop wowwing everytime I see this dance group performing. Balinese people are surely one of the biggest ethnic group in Indonesia who still pride themselves preserving their traditional culture, ie. dance, music, costume, food.

My first Bali Arts Festival parade was in 2003, it was at Renon Park in Denpasar, the opening ceremony is always inaugurated by our President ( and I got to wave to my President! ).

Bali Arts Festival Parade 2003 !

I used to be a balinese dancer for 6 years when I was a little kid, my mom put me into this dance course in Bandung, so I understand the rhythm of Balinese Gamelan-the traditional instrument, I know the moves, and this wowwing just never stop as each regency of Bali displays their performance.

Sandal jepit biru team/ Blue flip flop team

This year, of 2009, they changed the venue for the Opening Ceremony Puputan Park,Denpasar which I think a little bit too small and hectic to have a big parade with thousand of spectators on that day. Anyway, I had some troubles choosing the best pictures Bart took, because each photo has its own story and they’re just all beautiful and colorful!

Balinese wedding couple parade

Balinese Gamelan troupe

No! It's not a giant cow bell!

Comical (& Silly) Dance Troupe from Gianyar

The (normal) Crowd & The (crazy) Crowd on the tree

Only this year, as well, I decided to see some cultural performance during this full month of event, at the Art Center in Denpasar, with my two new friends from Austin,Texas who are my blog readers – Read more about this interesting friendship on my next blog post here !

2 Texas Guy @BAF

Francisco, Brian, Bart and me found this funny graffiti wall next to the car park lot at Art Center.

Taking out Einstein brain !

We were hoping to see real Bali cultural shows, too bad when we got there, it seemed to me more like a bazaar or day market. Food stalls with western food, where I was actually looking for a traditional balinese dish (pizza,pop corn,chicken nugget??? at a Bali cultural event!!??! hmm..), Spongebob, Dora Emon, Hello Kitty balloon vendor, a long hall of booths that only sell : silver,jewelry, shoes and Kebaya/traditional costume-more like a boutique to me. Hmmm…I think they’re still struggling from bringing this event into a cultural and traditional show case to the world as it is more like commercial trade show with ‘Art Festival’ make up in the label..

But I’m glad that we saw this one show called Mask Dance – Drama Parade, although we didn’t see the whole show, as the sunset on 66 beach were waiting for us

Mask Dance Drama

Anyway, I will keep coming to Bali Arts Festival, and will invite you to come specially on the opening ceremony day.And hey!you can still come now, click here to view the schedule.

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