Fire in the Banana's Belly: Bali's Female Performers Essay the Masculine Arts

Abstract

Balinese performing arts have had remarkable fluidity in their gender presentation, in which female impersonators have predominated. Over the past twenty-five years, however, women have been making inroads in the presentation of female characters, then androgynous characters, and now even some of the more crude male characters. Gamelan wanita, the all-women ensembles that were once a novelty, are now commonplace throughout the island and they are aspiring to ever higher levels of musicality. All-female troupes are performing formerly all-male genres such wayang wong, kecak, and topeng. Solo performers are both exploring the increasingly porous boundaries between masculine and feminine representations and probing the etiology of gender inequality.

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