Dance

Almost all Balinese are able to bend their fingers backward from the base and also at the joint between first and second phalanges. Balinese children, especially little Balinese girls, spend a great deal of time playing with the joints of their fingers, experimenting with bending them back until the finger lies almost parallel with the back of the hand. The more coordinated and disciplined the motion of the body becomes, the smaller the muscle groups with which a Balinese operates. Where an American will involve almost every muscle in his body to pick up a pin, the Balinese merely uses the muscles immediately relevant to the act, leaving the rest of the body undisturbed (Bateson & Mead, 1942: 99).

This flexibility finds its most beautiful expression in the hand-postures of dancers, most of which are derived from Indian mudras, although they do not have the symbolic and narrative meanings as in the Indian context, but purely ornamental functions.

Male baris dancers

Legong dancer

Balinese Grasp

A common feature of Balinese manual culture is the occurrence of complex grasping postures of the hand that would be exceedingly difficultfor ordinary members of industrialized societies. The participation of thousands of Balinese in activities such as woodcarving and painting, as well as dance and theater, require grasping postures that are rarely used in industrialized societies.

Hand-configurations that are formed to take or hold an object--specialists call them prehensile postures--usually involve the opposition between two “virtual fingers” or "jaws": the thumb and one other finger or group of fingers. In Balinese woodcarving and painting (and Western surgery), hand-postures often consist of three “viitual fingers”, as the hand of this painter who uses his pinkie as a “tripod”, to give support to the hand.

Woodworkers

Tying

One of the most difficult manual tasks in Bali--left to specialists because life and death depend on it--is the tying of spurs to the feet of fighting cocks. This is done with yards and yards of yarn. Intricate hand-postures are adopted in the process.