Ballroom Dancing a Hit at Puri Mas Boutique Resort

He used to waltz through his boutique hotel – and sometimes at other venues on the island too.

But now he gracefully bows out so younger dancers can take center stage at Puri Mas Boutique Resort.

Puri Mas Boutique Resort

Puri Mas is found on the Indonesian island of Lombok.

(Lombok is a 2½-hour high-speed ferry ride from Bali – and we found Lombok’s beaches and boutique hotels to be very alluring!)

This boutique Lombok hotel is the creation of Marcel De Rijk, a former world-champion ballroom dancer.

A Dutchman, Marcel built Puri Mas in 1987 as a tribute to his mother and grandfather, who were descendents of Indonesian royalty.

Free dance classes

To give back to the community, Marcel runs a social program called “Friends of Puri Mas,” where he teaches free weekly dance lessons to staff and young people from the villages around the hotel.

Funds for dance shoes and costumes come from Puri Mas and guest donations.

Weekly dance and cultural performances

The young students get experience performing in front of a crowd by entertaining Puri Mas hotel guests at weekly dance and cultural performances.

Over dinner one evening in the hotel’s aptly-named Ballroom Restaurant, we watched child dancers in dance costumes (some as young as five years old) expertly perform salsa, cha-cha, rumba and other dances in a delightful “Dancing With the Stars” adaptations.

The guests were the judges.

Other young adults demonstrated traditional Sasak stick fighting and performed Balinese-style dances (recalling the beautiful Balinese dancing we saw in Ubud, Bali’s cultural center).

Lombok International Dance Festival

Marcel is also the founder and organizer of the Lombok International Dance Festival – an annual event for more than a decade now.

The ballroom and Latin dance competition is the single largest sporting event in Lombok.

It’s provided a new outlet for the young people on the island to show off their dance skills (which they’d never be able to otherwise do) in a very fun way.

Competitions host hundreds of competitors from all around the world. Several of the winners were, of course, dancers from Lombok under Marcel’s tutelage.

Some young adult couples he’s taught are sponsored by him to compete outside of Lombok too.

Puri Mas review

So what’s Puri Mas Boutique Resort & Spa like?

The original rooms of the boutique beachfront hotel are Indonesian-style garden bungalows, with thatched roofs, ornately carved windows, dark wood Indonesian furniture and dainty terraces with day beds.

They’re very popular with guests, who love staying in these atmospheric accommodations.

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Photo credits: 8 © Janice and George Mucalov, SandInMySuitcase | Remaining images (except lead image) courtesy Puri Mas Boutique Resort

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