Kasenian Rรฉak: the Sundanese horse dance between artistic performance and ceremonial possession (II)

Luigi Monteanni spent a year in Indonesia to study the Kasenian Rรฉak, the traditional Sundanese horse dance, during which the participants in the ritual are possessed by spirits. Whatโ€ฆ

Kawah Ijen: Hell & Heaven

We made an excursion, among the indigenous sulfur collectors, on the slopes of the only volcano in the world that erupts blue lava: the Kawah Ijen on the Indonesian island of Java. The nocturnal catabasis and the morning ascent, similar to those of Dante in Dorรฉ's illustrations, gave rise to meditations in us on the power of the cataclysmic events that have always affected the Pacific "belt of fire", and on the necessity on the part of the man to accept them and to come to terms with them.