Bali? Hi!

126

Journalist Kamellia Soenjoto Smith is not your ordinary trailing spouse. When she arrived here she wasn’t familiar with the community and didn’t know anyone except her husband. Fast forward a couple years: now she’s a freelance reporter for community newspapers, which means (trust me on this) she has to know everyone and she has to know her way around everywhere. So she has pretty well settled in.

But she’s still missing some things about her Indonesian home. For one thing, she’d like to find people to dance with. And since Balinese dancers are not thick upon the ground here, she’s going to train them herself.  She’ll be teaching Pendet, a traditional Balinese welcoming dance, at Clifton Cultural Arts Center this spring. Balinese dance uses elegant, angular movements that engage the whole body, from toes to fingertips.  Kamellia says that learning Pendet is the way most dancers get schooled in the basics of the art—the lovely posture, the exotic hands, the darting eyes. Fundamentally, Pendet is “So You Think You Can Dance 101” in her native land.

The Saturday class begins March 29 and runs for 10 weeks, plus there will be a performance at the end. It’s open to anyone 10 and up, so it’s a chance for you and your teen to learn some new moves now that you’ve mastered dubstep. More info at Clifton Cultural Arts Center.  

Facebook Comments