legong dance
Originally uploaded by l_i_u_0.

The Legong dance might be the most interesting and graceful dance in the island, A legong is a girl, a young girl not older than early teens. According to the legend, this dance was inspired by the imagination of a king in 19 century. Others said that Legong was inspired by the dream of a King about goddess, the King then search the entire kingdom to find dance gurus and train them hard to make the dream close to reality.

The Legong Dance is a classic dance that has a very complex library of movement that flow along with gamelan. The word “Legong” is from the word “leg” mean elastic, elegance, and the word “gong” mean the music, so the Leg - Gong is a dance represents the epitomy of grace and femininity. The dancer has to let all the energy of the gamelan’s sounds flow to their body untill you feel shaking. The hands are the most mesmerizing, as the arms move up and about, the fingers are doing a dance of their own. They can make individual pairs of fingers flutter simultaneously, at the same time, the eyes are darting from left to right.

The story behind legong is very stylized and symbolic, involves three dancers, the two legong and their attendant, the congong. The legongs are beautifully dressed tightly with gold brocade that so surprising they can move so rapidly.

You can find Legong dance performance every Monday and Sunday nights at 7:30pm at the Puri Saren Palace Ubud.