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09/10/2010

Community Spirit

Good enough never is.
Debbie Fields

In her book, The DNA of Leadership (Avon, MA: Platinum Press, 2006), Judith Glaser describes how an extreme example of community spirit in Bali:

"The Balinese believe that art represents spirit and is a representation of collective thought.  From childhood, each person is trained to be a dancer, musician, mask-maker, or artist in one of the many crafts that are honored in Bali.  This is done to express spirituality and creativity, rather than as a means of making money.  Although many Balinese create a living from their art, it serves a more important function:  allowing their culture and history to flow from generation to generation.  Children are taught to be part of the collective whole, and villages have master workshops that go back for generations.

"To be a master artisan, one must be able to see how each art is related to the other.  Thus, a mask-maker must understand the dancer who will wear the mask.  The dancer needs to understand the significance of the story in order to bring the story to life.

"It is not uncommon to watch a temple celebration and see performers from age eight to eighty working together.  Members contribute all they can to ensure the success of the group.  A wonderful example is the gamelan, the Indonesian version of an orchestra.  Each instrument is tuned to its neighbor, making the whole gamelan a self-contained, coherent musical unit, played as a single instrument rather than a collection."



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