Dru Hendro and I Made Marajaya Cenk Blonk (I Wayan Nardayana) is Bali’s best known shadow puppeteer (dalang). His moniker is the composite of the names of his two favorite punakawan (clown) characters, Cenk and Blonk. During the COVID-19 pandemic, using his Cenk Blonk Channel on YouTube, he presented a series of simple, ten-to-twenty-minute scenes, featuring clown characters. These were meant to educate the public around issues of COVID-19 and promote social distancing in the Balinese community. Dru Hendro is a graduate of and teacher at the Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI, Indonesian Arts Institute) in Denpasar, Bali. His extensive writings …
Author: Melissa Flower Gladney
Surya Sewana in Balinese Wayang Wong Performance at Sanur Village Festival 2022
I Made Sidia Balinese see puppetry as the model and source of dance drama. A dalang (puppeteer) responds flexibly to the change from puppet, to masking, to human dancers and suits the needs of those seeking his/her expertise. To revive tourism, which had fallen due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 Sanur Village Festival (Sanfes) took the theme Surya Sewana (Glorifying the Sun). As a dalang, the author I Made Sidia, created a wayang wong (literally,“human puppetry”) performance staged at the festival telling the Ramayana story of the hermit Resi Wiswamitra, Rama, and Lakshmana carrying out the Surya Sewana ceremony …
Bhatara Kala: Sacred Myth in Balinese Wayang Parwa Shadow Puppetry
I Dewa Ketut Wicaksana, Ni Diah Purnamawati, and I Dewa Ketut Wicaksandita The sacred story of Bhatara Kala (God of Time) is presented for the sapuh leger (sweeping impurity) in Balinese shadow puppetry. The tale is derived from lontars (palm-leaf manuscripts) including Kala Tatwa (Reality of Kala), Kala Purana (Myth of Kala), and others. This symbolic story, related to magico-religious thought, provides guidelines for the community. This paper discusses five narratives in lontar versions of the tale, then notes the interpretation/analysis provided by Dalang I Made Sidja, a senior puppet master of the Balinese wayang tradition. Some of these ideas …
Training in Contemporary Balinese Wayang
I Nyoman Sedana The goal in studying Balinese wayang (puppetry) is to understand its traditions, aesthetics, philosophy, and innovations to create productions that appeal to contemporary viewers. Through family- and school-based training, students are taught kawi dalang (the creative art of the puppet master). At Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI, Indonesian Institute of the Arts) in Denpasar, curricular innovations have occurred and theory and practical work combine. Students’ final projects often favor contemporary wayang using new puppets, innovative stories, music, and manipulation techniques. I Nyoman Sedana is a professor at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts (ISI) Denpasar, director of Balimodule, …
The Dissenting Paper in Zero-COVID China
Zhixuan Zhu This article explores how paper became a tool of political dissent in Chinese people’s protests against the government’s authoritarian policies of “zero-COVID” and their collateral humanitarian crises. Paper took center stage in two incidents in 2022: the Chinese college students’ “cardboard dog zeal” during campus lockdown and the national protest/vigil known as the “white paper movement” or “A4 revolution.” In analyzing the two cases, I reveal how quotidian entities transform into puppets and performing objects that empower political expressions with their inherent materiality. Zhixuan Zhu is a PhD student in Theatre and Performance at the Graduate Center, City …
Puppetry Power: Puppetry Doubling Techniques in Portraying the Painful Past
Achinoam Aldouby Theatrical representations of history have a profound influence on the emotional connection of audiences to the past while shaping their perception of events. This paper delves into the aesthetic choices employed in portraying traumatic history, focusing on the utilization of what I am calling “the puppetry doubling technique,” which creates a distinctive reflective aesthetic, distinguishing past experiences from the way they are remembered. By presenting protagonists as both puppets and puppeteers, these performances create a space for reflection, enabling the audience to engage with the past in a meaningful way that often transcends the impact of vivid documentary …
Puppet Matters: New Materialism and Ecocriticism in Contemporary Puppetry
Kathy Foley New Materialism, Thing Theory, and Ecocriticism are affecting current performance and lead to productions like The Plastic Bag Store (2020) by Robin Frohardt, Chimpanzee (2019) by Nick Lehane, Aanika’s Elephants by Annie Evans, and PackRat by Renee Philippi. This focus on material as living brings thoughtful attention to puppetry as a discipline, but may merely reinforce what puppeteers already know. While this theory which, linked to climate change, is likely to grow thematically in coming years, can puppetry get us beyond our tendency to demand a human or humanized subject as protagonist? Is it possible to develop a new animism through …
The Name Succession Investitures of the Youki Marionette Family—Interweaving the Old and the New in Edo String Puppetry
Mari Boyd In name succession ceremonies, exhibiting excellence in traditional skills is considered a guarantee of leadership in developing and transmitting the traditional arts. Two new leaders have risen in the Youki marionette family, with differing perspectives evident in their respective celebrations. Isshi IV honored the traditional procedures while Magosaburō XIII included a new play suggesting where the winds of change may take Edo string puppetry. Mari Boyd is professor emeritus at Sophia University, Tokyo. Researcher of modern Japanese theatre including performing objects and intercultural theatre, she is author of Japanese Contemporary Objects, Manipulators, and Actors in Performance (Tokyo: Sophia …
