Find My Way

Asian Art Performance! What comes through your mind when you hear the name of this course? Like many other students, even I thought that in this class you will be learning about Asian theater and dances, which is partly true but not fully. Here, you do not only learn how to perform these arts but also understand them. I have also learned how they can be applied to our everyday lives.

I have never thought about comedy in a serious way. You see all these comedians making faces and cracking jokes but why is it really so funny when someone makes fun of him/herself? Why do we laugh about it? Francis explained to us that these comedians do not act or exaggerate but do it with true feelings. That applies to an actor/actress as well. An actor is not a good actor unless he melts into the role of his character he is playing. In that moment, he forgets himself, and the soul of the character slips into his body. Now, how does this apply to the real life? But first, what is the real life? It is the life that we create for ourselves, that we believe in, and that we continue to believe in. Francis explained that the only way we can achieve something is by not thinking about anything else but doing our best and giving our hundred percent, not worrying about what the outcome will be, and what we would get back because we will get more back than we actually expected. Open up yourself, have faith in yourself, and be proud of what you are.

My great fish in this class is to learn and understand the different dance disciplines we are learning because they do not only shape my body but also increase my understanding of life. We stamp really hard on the ground, and then we do our namashkar to ask for forgiveness from the earth. Don’t we do the same with people we love? We hurt them, and then we ask for forgiveness. Why do we hurt someone we love? Because those are the people we trust and know that even though they will get hurt by our words or actions, they will always be there to back us up. We all want to finish college with good grades and move on in life, but besides that, I want to establish what I want to do with my knowledge. This class has been helping me to realize different aspects of life. It is not only making my body more flexible but also my thoughts and my analysis of the world.

The banjar

The text Social System of Bali says that “the 'banjar' is a community of equals; before the 'banjar' all castes are equal.” As a community in class, this can be beneficial to us because no one here is better than the others. No one is smarter, no one is richer, and no one is more valuable. Everyone is the same. Here, we do not compete with each other but work and think with each other. There are no stairs to climb up in order to beat the others but there is a rope that you can grab and help the others to accomplish something as one single unit.

When we talked about the banjar in class, I realized that we all really did not understand what this was. In our lives outside of the classroom, there is no such thing like a single unit but the theory of the ‘survival of the fittest.’ Everyone is trying to be better than others, not only in studies but also in many other things. Competition and success that is all our lives are about. But the banjar is more like a big family where we help each other, listen to each other, laugh with each other, and the most important things is we walk step by step next to each other.

Monday’s class was a little confusing because everyone walked into the class expecting to talk about the Ramayana but instead we had long moments of silence. No one knew what to say because no one really knew what we were doing. That’s where our lack of understanding got us. That is the banjar where the members of the banjar meet up and share their thoughts, expectations, ideas, and problems. Eventually, even we got the habit of it and dared to talk.