Intertwine spirits of Bali
"Kecak" is derived from an old Balinese ritual called the sanghyang - a trance dance driven by its participants' repetitive chanting. In its ancient form, the sanghyang communicated the wishes of the gods or of the ancestors. In the 1930s, a German visitor reformatted the sanghyang into the more familiar kecak performance - doing away with the spiritualistic aspect of the dance and building it around the Hindu Ramayana epic. No musical instruments are used in a kecak performance - instead, you find about thirty bare-chested men sitting in a circle, uttering "chak… chak… chak" rhythmically and repetitively. The total effect is trance-inducing - repetitive voices and outlandish costumes creating a trippy experience.