Documentary Perspective of Balinese Performing Arts in 1928

Documentary film has a great value to share any special event or even knowledge that might be occurred only in a certain occasion. It provides visually and literally description which may lead us to the other perspective that people could not imagine before. One of authentic prove about the role of documentary film is the documentary film of Balinese Performing Arts in 1928. The variant of performing arts in 1928 were very unique and brought the value of Balinese performing art into the highest of successful moment which then gave impact to the existence of Balinese performing arts at the present. The purpose of this paper is to explore the characteristics of documentary film of Balinese Performing Arts in 1928 using documentary theory which also elaborated with descriptive-interpretative theory based on culture study approach. The data are taken from documentary film about Balinese Janger which known entitled “Janger Kedaton Denpasar” and “Janger Abiantimbul Denpasar” which analyzed using library research method. This paper concluded that these documentaries were presented without words, black and white documentary films which provide visual shoots as the description of the whole story of the documentary film. The production of visual shoots has a very high intensity to delivered nature situation and condition of Balinese society engaged to Balinese performing arts in 1928. Besides, it also found 2 out of 7 techniques applied within the documentary films such as archival footage and exposition. Keywords: Documentary, Film, Performing Arts in 192