Performances
Ensemble performances staged in the round, where the chorus becomes the score and the audience sits inside the sound rather than in front of it.
Rhythm · Storytelling · Shared experience
Come together in rhythm.
Ketjak creates performances and workshops where voices, rhythm and story unite a room of strangers into one ensemble.
Concept brand. Sample programmes and dates shown for illustration.
What we offer
Four ways a Ketjak circle can sit inside your programme.
Participatory workshops
Seated circle sessions taught by ear. Everyone leaves able to hold a part, whether they arrived as a singer or as someone who never sings.
Corporate and festival programmes
Openers, closers and late-night sets built around your running order, from a 90-person conference room to an outdoor main stage.
Cultural learning with respect
Every session names where the form comes from, works alongside practitioners, and treats the tradition as living practice rather than decoration.
Interactive demo
Rhythm circle
Tap the circle in time with the pulse. Each tap adds a voice, and the ring fills as more join — the same layering a chorus builds in a room.
Voices in the circle
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0 in time with the pulse
Demo interaction. The circle fills as voices join, the way a kecak chorus builds layer by layer.
Reference track — demo only
Interlocking Chorus, Part I
Ketjak ensemble · rehearsal room
Player interface shown for design purposes. No audio is played on this demo site.
Upcoming events
Sample listings showing how a Ketjak season might read across performances, workshops and programme days.
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Sample listings for demonstration. Dates highlighted in red carry an event.
Performance
12 September 2026Circle of Voices — evening performance
Full ensemble programme with a short audience chorus at the close.
Riverside Amphitheatre, Bristol 19:30 – 21:00
Workshop
19 September 2026Open rhythm workshop
No experience needed. Learn interlocking patterns by ear in a seated circle.
Studio Two, Bristol 18:00 – 20:00
Programme
26 September 2026Schools matinee and story session
Key Stage 2 and 3 groups, with a teacher pack sent in advance.
Colston Hall Studio, Bristol 11:00 – 12:15
How it works
From first conversation to the moment the chorus lands, four steps that keep the work simple to plan.
- 01
We talk about the room
Size, shape, sightlines, running order and who is coming. A circle behaves differently in a black box than it does on a hillside, and the plan starts there.
- 02
We shape the programme
Performance, workshop or both. We agree the length, the story being told and how much the audience is invited to join in.
- 03
We build the chorus
Parts are taught by ear in layers, so a room of strangers can lock into one pattern within minutes and hear the whole thing arrive.
- 04
We hand the room back
You get notes, a short recording plan and material for anyone who wants to keep the practice going after the lights come up.
Who this is for
Illustrative scenarios, written to show the kind of brief a Ketjak circle suits.
A festival programmer
Needs a dusk set that gathers a scattered field into one crowd without a PA-heavy stage build.
A corporate event team
Wants an opener that gets 200 delegates making something together in twenty minutes, before the first keynote.
A secondary school
Is teaching the Ramayana and wants pupils to feel the rhythm of the story rather than only read about it.
A cultural traveller
Has seen kecak performed abroad and wants a session that explains what they heard and why it is built that way.
About kecak
Kecak is a Balinese form of collective vocal performance. A large chorus sits in a circle and builds interlocking rhythmic patterns with the voice alone, while episodes of the Ramayana are told in the centre. It emerged in the twentieth century from older trance-related chant practice, and it is still performed in Bali today.
Ketjak works alongside practitioners who hold the form, and follows their lead on what travels and what stays in its ceremonial setting. Sessions name the tradition and its source clearly. We do not present ceremonial material as entertainment, and we describe our work as rhythm and storytelling in the kecak lineage rather than as kecak itself.
Book a workshop
Tell us about the group and the room, and we will come back with a shape and a length that fits.
About the name
Why we are called Ketjak
Ketjak is a recognised spelling associated with Balinese kecak, a collective vocal performance linked to storytelling from the Ramayana epic. The older Dutch-influenced spelling still appears in recordings and writing about the form, and we use it as a nod to that written history.
The name also says what the work is: many voices, one pattern, a story held in the middle of the circle.
Frequently asked questions
The things programmers, teachers and event teams ask first.
Get in touch
Performances, workshops, festival programmes or a question about the tradition — start here.
For enquiries about this concept brand and the ketjak.com domain, email info@exergist.com.
Based in the South West of the United Kingdom, travelling for programmes and festivals.