Ni Made Darmi, former palace dancer, stays active

Panca Nugraha, The Jakarta Post, Mataram

That afternoon the Wijaya Kusuma Dance Studio was alive with the sound of gending, a composition played by a gamelan orchestra. Dozens of elementary school-aged girls were practicing the Cenderawasih (bird of paradise) dance. They moved rhythmically, following the gending from a tape recorder in a corner of the studio.

Their scarves were tied at the hip with one corner held by the hand to form a wing. The children kept moving, swaying together as they danced the Cenderawasih, giving an appearance of flying.

The studio was only a simple eight-by-eight meter building with concrete walls on the east and south sides. The west and north sides had no walls, only a waist-high loosely woven bamboo fence. The floor was concrete and the ceiling had been made from sheet iron.

Ni Made Darmi sat on a wooden bench near a timber table where the sound system was located.

"Please nyeledet...ngelog.., don't forget to smile." She moved forward to the girls while the Sekarjagat gending was playing. This Balinese dance consists of nyeledet movements (in the Balinese language this means glancing aside with the eyes wide open) and ngelog (walking while moving the hips).

Following the Sekarjagat gending music broadcast through the sound system Ni Made Darmi occasionally instructed the girls in the correct hand gestures. She told them how to position their thumbs and directed their movements in the correct way for the gending music.

"Every time I see the spirit of these girls as they practice dancing I feel so happy, very satisfied. Particularly when they master many movements and want to keep dancing," Ni Made Darmi told The Jakarta Post.

Ni Made Darmi wore a blue kebaya, the traditional front-fastening blouse. The traces of her past beauty could still be seen, although her white skin carries many wrinkles to mark the passing of her 69 years.

She established the Wijaya Kusuma Dance Studio together with her late husband, I Wayan Kerthawirya, in 1971 in front of her house in Cakranegara, Mataram.

As a palace dancer Ni Made Darmi was popular in the 1950s. Because she was so talented she was always invited to the Presidential Palace every Aug. 17 to take part in the Independence Day celebrations. President Soekarno asked the famous artist Basuki Abdullah to draw Ni Made Darmi once when she finished dancing, and till now that painting still hangs in the Bogor Palace.

"That event impressed me greatly," she said. "Because I was a talented dancer I could get close to president Soekarno's family. Moreover Bu Fatmawati (Soekarno's wife) asked me to stay together with them, to become her adopted child."

Ni Made Darmi was born in Denpasar in 1938 to the couple I Ketut Rampuk and Ni Made Remeh. She was the second of six children and inherited the traditional arts of her father and mother.

In 1945 after Indonesia achieved independence her father took Ni Made Darmi to enhance her dancing skills in a studio owned by I Ketut Kaler, the famous artist in Bali. One day in the early 1950s president Soekarno visited Bali. Ni Made Darmi was one of the teenagers who greeted him with a Balinese dance performance.

"Pak Karno really liked dancing, and after that welcoming in Bali he always invited me to dance in the palace every 17 of August," she recalled.

Besides dancing on Independence Day, Ni Made Darmi frequently accompanied president Soekarno on his official visits overseas, including to Singapore, the Philippines, China, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong.

Though she continued to live in Denpasar, Bali, Ni Made Darmi was often invited to cities in Java to perform her dances.

"The first time I went abroad was in 1958, together with Pak Karno's group to China. That was a friendship visit," she said.

The last time Ni Made Darmi danced in the Presidential Palace was in the mid 1960s. The Indonesian political map was starting to change and president Soekarno lost his position. In the late 1960s Ni Made Darmi got a proposal from I Wayan Kerthawirya who became her husband. She then followed her husband to Lombok in Eastern Indonesia.

"My husband worked in the private sector and he also liked art. So in 1971 we established this dance studio. Yes, in Lombok, this was the first dance studio," she said.

When asked about the number of students that she had trained, this friendly woman broke into laughter.

"My God... so many, thousands," she said. "I always forget when I meet former students. Later when the visitor says: 'I was your student, now it's my child who wants to learn dancing,' then I remember."

When the Post visited Ni Made Darmi's dance studio, lessons were being given by her former students, Dewi and Yanti. Many photos from albums were displayed as she wanted to show how her students had fared.

"This was an American child who followed her father who was researching art," she said. "In the 90s this family stayed six months in my house while their child continued her dance studies."

She showed other photos, including a picture of her husband I Wayan Kerthawirya and an American couple with a daughter wearing dancing clothes.

But there were not many memories of her time as a palace dancer included in the albums. "In the mid 1960s many didn't like Pak Karno... so ...," Ni Made Darmi's voice trailed off and she would not continue.

There was only a picture of a woman standing next to a painting of a beautiful woman wearing dance clothes.

"This was my niece," she said, indicating the woman alongside the painting, a photo taken in Bogor Palace. "And the painting beside her is of me. The painting was made by Pak Dolah (Basuki Abdullah). But I only knew that the painting was hanging in Bogor Palace after my niece sent the picture."

Now Ni Made Darmi lives together with her child, Ni Nyoman. Her husband has passed away.

Her age has not made Ni Made Darmi lose her love of the art of dancing.

"I always tell my students that our arts and local culture shouldn't be lost," she said. "Because they are going to school they have a chance to learn our culture. Foreigners are happy with our dances, so why not us? Our national culture should be locked in our souls so it remains there for ever."