There’s a simple way to keep a tradition alive: through children’s bodies learning to move it themselves, slowly, until the movement feels like part of who they are. That’s what happened on September 22, 2026, when Pasraman Day COCO Social Fund returned, this time bringing a traditional Sekar Jagat dance class to children in Cepaka Village.
COCO Social Fund provided the space and facilities, local residents brought the spirit, and the children just needed to show up with curiosity. That simple combination is what keeps Pasraman Day running as one of the foundation’s flagship programs for grassroots-level Balinese cultural preservation.
Pasraman Day is a recurring COCO Social Fund activity that involves local Cepaka Village residents, especially children, by providing a venue and educational facilities. The concept isn’t complicated: the foundation prepares the space and supporting resources, while a trainer or a resident with relevant skill fills the program itself, whether that’s dance, music, or another traditional craft.
This format carries a real advantage over commercial dance studios that typically charge fees. Cepaka Village children get to learn without worrying about course costs or the distance to a studio in the city. Educational activities for children in Bali like this land hardest when they show up close to home, in a place where children can practice slowly, without racing toward a deadline.
Why the Sekar Jagat Dance?
Among Bali’s many dances, Sekar Jagat holds a special place as a welcome dance. Its name comes from two words: “sekar,” meaning fragrant flower, and “jagat,” meaning world or universe. Put together, the name roughly captures a flower whose fragrance spreads across the entire world.
The dance was created in 1993 by Dr. N.L.N. Swasthi Widjaja Bandem, originally for the opening of a Balinese textile exhibition in Jakarta. Its movements draw inspiration from the Rejang dance native to Karangasem, set to Gong Kebyar gamelan music composed by I Nyoman Windha. It’s typically performed by a group of female dancers, each carrying a canangsari offering tray, expressing the joy of welcoming guests through graceful, dynamic movement.
Choosing Sekar Jagat as the teaching material for this round of Pasraman Day makes sense from several angles. Its movements are relatively easier for children to pick up compared to sacred dances bound by strict conventions, yet it still carries plenty of Balinese aesthetic and philosophical value. Children learn more than just the choreography. They come to understand why every hand gesture and gaze carries its own meaning within the context of welcoming and honoring others.
There’s practical value here too. Sekar Jagat is widely known as an opening dance for events, so children who master it can eventually perform on various occasions, from traditional ceremonies at the banjar to formal school events. That skill becomes something immediately usable, not just knowledge that stays confined to the practice room.
Read also: Open House Kimnara Space: An Afternoon That Brought Together Rice Fields, Dance, and Free Coffee
Learning to Dance as Part of Village Empowerment
Pasraman Day, including this edition, is part of the longer-running community empowerment program COCO Social Fund runs in Cepaka Village. Unlike the plastic waste processing or social aid programs, Pasraman Day targets something more subtle: identity and self-confidence in children, built through their own culture.
A child who grows up with easy access to traditional dance training usually develops a different closeness to their culture than one who only knows the dance through stories or the occasional performance. There’s a difference between knowing Bali has many beautiful dances and feeling firsthand what it’s like to move to the rhythm of gamelan while carrying a canangsari, staying present through every count of the beat.
COCO Social Fund’s Role: Holding Space, Not Holding the Lesson
One interesting thing about the Pasraman Day format is COCO Social Fund’s position, largely as a facility provider rather than the main instructor. The foundation supplies the venue, supporting resources, and the opportunity for this activity to happen, while the actual dance teaching involves residents or trainers who genuinely hold that skill.
This approach carries a long-term advantage. Knowledge and skill keep circulating among local residents instead of arriving from outside and leaving once the program ends. COCO Social Fund acts as a facilitator opening up space, while the Bali environmental and cultural community already taking shape in Cepaka Village helps keep the tradition alive through its own hands.
Long-Term Value for Cepaka Village
The impact of a dance class like this rarely shows up on the day itself. It appears months or years down the line, once children who once learned Sekar Jagat at Pasraman Day grow into teenagers who still feel confident dancing in public, or even become instructors for the younger kids coming up behind them.
For any company or partner weighing a CSR program in Bali, Pasraman Day offers a collaboration model that isn’t only about donating goods or cash. Support can take the shape of facilities, space, or opportunity, something a community sometimes needs more than a one-time handout.
Cepaka Village itself, through programs like this, is slowly building a reputation as a village serious about caring for its own cultural heritage, while gaining the potential to grow into an educational tourism destination for anyone wanting to see firsthand how Balinese culture gets passed down to the next generation.
Closing Thoughts: A Flower Growing From Its Own Roots
Pasraman Day COCO Social Fund’s Sekar Jagat edition proves that caring for culture doesn’t always need a grand stage or an expensive studio. Sometimes it just takes a venue, a resident willing to share their skill, and space for children to learn in their own way.
Sekar Jagat means a flower whose fragrance spreads across the world. Through Pasraman Day, that fragrance starts from the closest place possible: a family’s own front yard in Cepaka Village, where children learn to dance while quietly carrying forward a cultural identity they’ll take with them wherever they go.
