Australian
Screen

Clip description

A group of Balinese dancers perform a traditional Balinese dance in an open rectangular space. The camera follows the movements of two female dancers dressed in Balinese costume with elaborate headdress. The Europeans are dressed in colonial-era attire and quietly observe the performance from beyond the perimeter of the dancers.

Curator’s notes

Bali in the 1930s (in fact Asia in general) would have been a rare destination for tourists from Australia. It was Beckwith’s wealth and sense of adventure which led him to explore this region. According to his daughter, he probably owned a tobacco plantation on one of the Indonesian islands. In this clip, Balinese culture is, in part, a projection of the Western gaze. The act of filming a performance such as this, while appearing neutral, is always a result of an active engagement with the world. The camera certainly records historical and social details such as the costuming, movements and interactions between the performers, but it also represents Beckwith’s perspective and choice of subject matter.

Exotic projections of Balinese culture can also be seen in clip 1 of The Dance of the Eyes, a travelogue made in the 1940s. A traditional Balinese dance is filmed with a voice-over narration which reinforced the contemporary view that Asian cultures were exotic or ‘other’. While Dance of the Eyes perhaps represents a more explicit projection of Balinese culture as ‘other’, the general perspective is very similar to this home movie from the colonial period of the 1930s. It is very much of its time.