CALON Arang has come a long way ever since the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias landed and settled on the island Bali in the 1930s when nearly every Balinese accepted her as a symbol of the dark world, a carrier of disaster. But today not a few Balinese look at the widow from the Dirah village as an icon of resistance. In the eyes of young writers, Calon Arang is seen as a metaphor of a womans struggle for dignity.

Calon Arang is interpreted in