Bali Photography

The picture taken on 6 of march, which took place in Sanur around 30 minutes fom Seminyak or Canggu area. Ogoh-ogoh festival, underlined one simple fact; that ogoh-ogoh has become one of the most popular art forms in contemporary Bali. Over 5,000 people besieged the narrow Jl. Danau Buyan, the venue of the parade, and caused suffocating traffic jams in the nearby streets of the resort village of Sanur. Born in the 1980s, the ogoh-ogoh initially were used to spice up the Ngerupuk religious parade, during which the Balinese, armed with bamboo torches and noisy percussion instruments, tried to scare away evil spirits from their village. Ogoh-ogoh were made and paraded around as the gigantic symbol of those spirits. At the end of the parade, they were burned in the village’s main intersection. Ngerupuk fell on the eve of the Balinese day of silence Nyepi, the quietest new year celebration in the world. In recent years, however, ogoh-ogoh has been gradually viewed as another charming, alternative tourist attraction. Hotels began constructing their own ogoh-ogoh and the government started organizing the ogoh-ogoh festival.