Arja is one of Bali's many genres of dance drama and has proven one of the most popular and adaptable. Originally danced by males, by the 1920s women started to take on major parts. Women are so suited to Arja roles that gradually they also took over the refined male characters as well, making it in significant part theatre about and by women, to the point that in the 1990s all-male troupes of Arja performers re-emerged. Arja is singularly versatile. It may use Topèng masks (a version called Prèmbon). It is suited to historical or contemporary dramas, love stories (Indonesian, Chinese and Arabic), and even Greek tragedy.
For these reasons, while other genres have come into vogue and gone, Arja has continued to draw Balinese audiences for nearly a hundred years. Another reason is that it is total theatre. The music is simple, elegant (and very difficult to play). It requires great acting and dancing skills, not least because plots are extemporized on stage for up to five hours. The emotional repertoire is demanding as it runs from slapstick farce to sharp political jokes to romance and tragedy. And finally, Arja is operatic. All the main characters sing arias in a range of different Balinese metred verse forms, tembang, each with its distinctive emotional register - the professionals being so skilled that they can ad lib during performance as the plot twists and turns. Arja is so demanding and takes so long to learn that there are relatively few recognized top professionals. Indeed senior figures now worry for the future of Arja because young people are attracted to the easier dance roles popular with international audiences.
