Shadow Puppet: 45 minutes show under the moon [Performing Art]

Supposedly, this post was published last month, right after I attended the show, but somehow I postponed it and only after Self Awareness Day I have a chance to publish it, guess why? :P

It was my first time experience watching Wayang, shadow puppet play from Central Java and Bali, and I was totally impressed and enjoyed it much. The dialogue of Wayang was re-written by a person I know: Agnes Christina. According to her, the story itself is based on the original book that she has and she simply made the dialogues with casual jokes which in my opinion any other people who understand the language will understand it despite of their education backgrounds or so whatever.

Information from the booklet given before the show

Within more or less 45 minutes, audiences were entertained by the dialogue, the sound (or can I say music?), and a good Dhalang, master puppeteer and storyteller. As I mentioned, the dialogues were meant for public consumption as long the audiences understand the language, mix of Malay, Indonesia and English. Well, you notice that I separate between Malay and Indonesia because indeed those 2 languages are different, to those who think they are the same, please upgrade your dictionary. :)

All of the sound effects were executed digitally and I love it how it creates the atmosphere of show become contemporary style, yet it still portrays what it supposedly to be shown. I was kinda surprised with the fact that it was the first time experience for sounds effect guy to do this kind of sounds. When it comes to Dhalang, my comments only what a great show by her. First, she can make quite range of different human voices for few number of characters within the show. Yup, it was only her who dubbed the voice of characters. On top of it, there are skills needed to play shadow puppet in my opinion and again she is a first timer as well.

An attempt taking picture

With all of first timers in this show production: script writer, sounds effect person, and Dahlang, I would say it was well executed, as I did not really have any expectations since it is a free admission event as well. But in case, you a bit curious about the write-up for this event, here we go:

This Wayang Kulit performance tells the story of Bima's journey to find the holy water of life in a contemporary manner and features elementx found within the three faiths of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.

And this is the video by Suria.