By the end of the nineteenth century, the Far East was becoming a playground for adventurous Brits who felt the European Grand Tour of old – from where the word tourism comes – was far too tame. The likes of Thomas Cook blazed the tourist trail in India and the Orient, and thanks to our colonial cousins in Holland, paradise destinations such as Bali and Java were also being preserved as showpieces of their own empire.
It’s not clear why dance critic and Bloomsbury set scholar Beryl de Zoete wound up in Bali in the 1930s, but the artist and choreographer Walter Spies was a well-known local fixer there at the time, inviting travellers to experience the so-called ‘island of the Gods’. De Zoete left the Horniman Museum her trove of Balinese trinkets, films and photographs relating to the mystifying rituals and dances she witnessed there, which is where this show begins: in grainy footage of strange whirling and strutting figures dressed as birds or trees.
Most traditional dance on Bali tells tales from the Ramayana or Mahabharata, evoking violent struggles between rival gods such as demon queen Rangda and spirit king Barong, the spectacular costumes for which resemble the painted faces of Chinese dragons by way of supernatural ghouls, with often similarly supernatural amounts of hair. Kids can try on the mask of a frog monster, a cheeky Hanuman monkey or a Naga serpent, but better still is the Balinese astrological chart, which gives you a character based on your birthday (I’m an ‘empty cart’, my son a ‘broody goose’).
You can look at, but not touch, the magnificent 16-piece gamelan orchestra that provides the musical accompaniment to most Balinese dance (as well as more outlandish ceremonies such as tooth-filing), although it is occasionally activated for performances that ring out its beautiful singsong tones across the museum atrium. The detail in every artefact (many of which have been made for the show, rather than removed from religious duties in Bali) will astound, but I wonder whether this subject will prove too niche for the general visitor, uninitiated in the riotous colour and carvings hidden within. Don’t be put off by the archive opener, then, although it’s this lens from a more innocent time through which I prefer to imagine these far-flung spectacles.