Dewa Ayu Larassanti is a dancer, musician, singer, and actor. As a Fulbright Student Researcher, she is studying with elderly master artists in Bali and collaborating with Bapak I Wayan Sudiarsa at Universitas Hindu Indonesia, Denpasar, to digitize classic dance repertoires. Bapak Sudiarsa is also a composer and director, emphasizing the importance of digitization through recordings with his company, Gamelan Suling Gita Semara.

“Kilitan: Balinese Dance and Music” is a heritage project highlighting the voices and perspectives of elderly Balinese artists while engaging and empowering different communities and generations. In the past few years, Balinese artists have experienced the loss of several great artists, many of whom were young. The shared grief within the artistic community in Bali has generated a sense of urgency to pass down knowledge from one generation to the next. The project centers Balinese perspectives and artistry on social media and streaming platforms, adapting the method of archiving and preservation of classical forms to keep up with the changing times in the hopes of captivating the new, younger generations of artists. Audiovisual recordings of dance, music, and oral history interviews will be available for any Balinese artist or researcher to access in the hopes that younger generations of artists can study and utilize these recordings as a resource. Young people can learn the importance of keeping classic pieces alive while generating ideas for adapting and adding to traditional pieces to inspire and experiment with their works in the future.

Ayu graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in World arts and cultures and a double minor in ethnomusicology and entrepreneurship.