Trance and Dance in Bali (1952)

Directed by

Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

22 min

Rating

5.4 of 10 from 9 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This short documentary shows Balinese women dancing while in a trance. They stab themselves with daggers but are not hurt. The footage was shot by anthropologists in the 1930s.

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What happens

Trance and Dance in Bali is a short documentary film shot by the anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson during their research on Bali in the 1930s. It shows female dancers with sharp kris daggers dancing in trance, eventually stabbing themselves without injury. The film was not released until 1951. It has attracted praise from later anthropologists for its pioneering achievement, and criticism for its focus on the performance, omitting relevant details such as the conversation of the dancers. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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• More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.