Ibu Rucina: FALING IN LOVE WITH A BALINESE MAN BY RAHIMA SAIKAL “I don’t know why he married
“When I stepped off the plane, I
me. He knew he was marrying a
thought, I’m home,” Rucina said,
strong Western woman.”
rolling her eyes. “I could smell the kretek in the air, it was all
Falling in love with a ‘beautiful
very romantic.”
brown man’ in Bali in the 1980s wasn’t in Ibu Rucina’s life plan.
The then-21-year-old immersed
Nor was living a life full of
herself in the world of Balinese
challenges, suppressed within
dance at KOKAR, the High
a patriarchal society and an
School of Performing Arts in
unhappy marriage to boot. But
Denpasar before moving to the
when she tells me about her
village of Batuan to study with
career, her family and her
one of the great masters.
thoughts on Balinese culture and society, I
“I studied 4 hours a day –
can see this absolute
when my teacher was there.
powerhouse of a
Sometimes he’d be at a cock fight
woman has decided
or would be feeding his cows
that it was all worth
in the field, but I’d just wait. In
it.
those days, waiting was much more a part of the culture than
Her love of traditional
it is now.”
dance brought her to Bali in the 1970s. Young, naïve
For the next decade, Rucina
and with stars in her eyes, she
went back and forth between
arrived on the island of the Gods
Bali and her home country, the
at 11.30 pm one night.
US. It wasn’t until 1985,
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