Trance

Close-up focus on a maze of colours and forms, peripheral clues and suggestive backdrops evoke the proximity of other planes of reality. Fee Ming invites the viewer to enter into an essential part of the Balinese universe: the world of dance and theatre. He pictures this world in four paintings, one a diptych in bright hues of copper and red, and the others in dark colours, yet inhabited by an inner fire. The dark greens and deep blues of these paintings are strewn with yellow flames. Slivers of white glitter like eyes of demons glowing in the night. The Malays say, when such an impression is created, the painting is berhantu—it has a life of its own.

In the Hindu Balinese pantheon, Shiva is the God whose cosmic dance generates the universe. For the Balinese, dancing is a celebration of creative energy. To dance is to pray, to re-enact, and to participate in the Gods’ sacred activities. Besides learning repeatedly steps and stories until they “go into their hearts”, the dancer undergoes an esoteric training. Before each celebration, they meditate on sacred formulas. They are then able to enter into a trance, dance for hours, walk on charcoal or hypnotize the spectators. Their performance transports them into a different dimension. Tirelessly, the scales of the gamelan fill the air with their own measure of time.

Pelangi, 1996 (pages 82-83) freezes the action at that moment when a group of dancers is about to enter the scene. A zoom effect flattens distances. Young bodies are seen pressed together as in a temple carving. In the second panel, a perspective opens a space where, for the celebrants, acting will be the?same as living. In Dance for Medusa, 1998 (page 90), it could be the same group, but the light has gone and they have stepped into a trance. They dance in front of a fanged stone guardian at the door of a temple where demons have suddenly appeared, rejoicing madly in the background. In another diptych, there are kings with smooth skins, one with a fierce moustache, a character in blue—perhaps a Monkey God ready to help Laksamana, one of the heroes of the Ramayana. These masks, infused with a life of their own, are really talking to each other.