One week after its American premiere in Washington, D.C., the Otrabanda Company's Barong Display was presented in the Michigan Union Ballroom. The production was the finished product of the Otrabanda's study at the University of Malaysia in Peneng.

A comic melodrama treated in a somewhat serious fashion, Barong Display exhibited influences from the traditional and popular Balinese and Chinese theatres. The plot involved the intricate, workings of a rapidly decaying Southeast Asian kingdom and its court, symbolized by the Balinese barong, or dragon. Barong Display's music was composed from a mixture of gameloninstrumentation and Western percussion pieces. The acting and costuming were derived in part from the Peking Opera and from popular Chinese and American roots—for instance, Kung Fu and the Chinese Dragon Dance.