Dancers, Musicians of Bali Sample Traditional Idioms

From the overtones of hammered chimes and gongs that accompany the performance to the elaborately fringed and jeweled costumes that heighten the performer’s every move, Balinese dance cultivates an unearthly shimmer--with the dancers’ quivering fingers, darting eyes, intricate footwork and tiny twists of the arms and upper torso reinforcing the sense of a gleaming mirage vibrating with life but too delicate for this world.

At El Camino College on Saturday, a 35-member company from this fabled Indonesian island presented a sampling of traditional idioms--many of them religious in origin. In “Pendet,” for instance, four women blessed the stage with showers of flower petals and their own quicksilver grace, while a masked dance-drama at the end of the program showed the cosmic, always unresolved battle between the evil Rangda and the heroic, lion-like Barong.

In the “Kecak” (a 20th century innovation appropriating several older forms), percussive chanting by 22 men periodically yielded to mime scenes summarizing the Hindu epic “Ramayana.” Unfortunately, the house program didn’t even mention the work’s narrative episodes and more audience confusion resulted from major changes in the order and number of dances listed.

Finally, no dancers were credited individually, so only inquiring reviewers knew that it was I Nyoman Joni who exemplified male pride and power in the “Baris” showpiece--or that Anak Agung Raka Jeniari danced the long opening solo and the golden bird of ill omen in the classic “Legong Keraton.”

In “Oleg Tambulilingan” (another recent addition to the traditional repertoire), Cokorda Istri Ratih Iriani and I Made Lila Arsana should have been identified as the participants in the simultaneously intense and refined courtship duet that evoked the insect world in order to create yet a new variety of archetypal Balinese shimmer.

* Dancers and Musicians of Bali appear at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Tickets: $18, $22. (714) 854-4646.