Papers (Part 1)

• Cembengan: The EtioIation of Wayang Ritual Drama and Local Knowledge Dewanto Sukistono Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Yogyakarta

  Cembengan is a ritual held once a year to mark the beginning of the sugar cane grinding at the PT. Madu Baru PG/PS Madukismo, Yogyakarta and other sugar factories. It lasts several days and always begins and ends with an all-night wayang performance. First, it starts with an offering (ancak-ancak tumpeng sewu) that is placed at certain sacred places and followed by a wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre) performance at Parangkusumo beach. A pilgrimage is undertaken to Ki Ageng Giring’s grave in Gunungkidul, a cemetery in Kotagede, the kings’ cemetery in Imogiri, and the cemetery of predecessors who worked at the sugar cane factory. Finally, there is an offering ritual inside the factory and a pageant (kirab tebu temanten), concluding with a wayang kulit performance.

  In the past, the wayang play selected was related to the local people’s relationship with the environment, agriculture, and agrarian life. Due to recent social cultural changes, the wayang ritual now serves a new function, namely as an entertainment. Its story and meaning is no longer a priority and the show is separated from the ritual processes.

  This paper aims to explain how wayang kulit performance could be a communication space to reconnect people to nature and promote awareness of ecological considerations.

• Sujarah Penatah (A History of Wayang Carvers): Narrative, Creativity, Legitimacy Bima Raharja Universitas Gadjah Mada

  The names of wayang puppet makers or penatah (in Javanese) are well known among puppetry aficionados in Indonesia, but little tends to be known about their biographies. It is as if their personalities are overwhelmed by the greatness of their art work. In Yogyakarta’s wayang tradition, a number of names such Resapenatas, Maraguna, Kertiwanda, Prawirasucitra, Prayitnawiguna and Bundhu are very well known. All are considered great wayang makers or artists, with distinct aesthetic styles, but almost all details of their lives are unknown. The only substantial written text to concern penatah is a manuscript titled Sujarah Panatah (A History of Wayang Carvers)written in the early 20th century in Yogyakarta. Tales about carverstake the form of wayang plays. In one play, Ki Mangunwiguna teaches his son how to make a wayang based on prior exemplars. The author of the text tries to connect factual stories and myths about the gods. As inbabadstories about kings of yore, wayang makers are presented as if they are also not just ordinary people. This is a means to establish their legitimacy. They are chosen, because they are able to communicate with gods. Alongside the text are wayang-style illustrations, supplementing the creativity of the narrative. This paper will consider the factual basis and validity of stories collected in the Sujarah Penatah, the way the text understands the origins of creativity and its mode for legitimising wayang makers and the continuity of their craft.

• The Ritual Use of Wayang for Controlling the Natural Environment in Dutch Colonial Literature Sietske Rijpkema Royal Holloway, University of London

  Javanese wayang (shadow puppetry) and its ritual use in traditional and agrarian communities has been described in several 19th and 20th century Dutch colonial writings. Dutch descriptions focus on how wayang ritual drama is used to manage and control the natural environment: averting plagues of rats and severe diseases, invoking rain for agricultural purposes or to ward off natural disasters – such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods – that affect local communities. Puppeteers are considered to have cosmological powers and the ability to communicate with supernatural beings which they utilize to bring about changes in the environment to fulfill the needs of local communities.

  Generally, colonial literature about wayang theatre served as an instrument for colonial rule and was influenced by an interest in linguistic aspects in the 19th century, as well as an interest in the mystical elements of wayang and Javanese tradition under the influence of the Theosophical Society at the beginning of the 20th century. This paper explores how ritual wayang performances were discussed, which aspects were highlighted, and how these texts relate to other colonial literature that address wayang performances in general or in specific reference to environmental issues. Published writings by scholars such as R. Inggris and G.A.J. Hazeu, as well as unpublished writings by J.L. Moens, are considered. The paper explores how ritual practices have been described in areas such as Kedu and Karangjati, concentrating on which lakon (plots, narratives) are used by dhalang, among these Watugunung, Banyurolas, Eramba and Mekukuhan, and how these are accompanied and completed by sesajen (ceremonial offerings of food, flowers and so on) and other ritual practices. It explores how the colonial written sources reflect the interests of colonial rule as opposed to writings by Javanese wayang experts.

Papers (Part 2)

• Contemporary Wayang in Java and Environment Marianna Lis National Academy of Theatre Arts, Krakow

  One of the most characteristic attribute of wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre) is that it encompasses a holistic view of the universe, essaying the laws that rule it and the human and nonhuman persons inhabiting it. At the same time, wayang is also a space where there has always been a place for the most important current problems and challenges, especially those important for local communities. Wayang has taught and commented on the moral and ethical values that viewers should follow. Hence in the last century the stories associated with the struggle for independence, propaganda content during the New Order regime and comments by puppeteers on corruption of rulers, have all been present in the performances. And as environmental sustainability becomes an import issue, performances show how local wisdom transmitted in wayang can help to solve global problems.

  So what is the shape of environmental discourse in contemporary wayang in Java? More and more artists introduce topics related to climate crisis to their performances. Some of them leave the subject on the margins, making it a kind of background for the action being played out. For others, however, topics related to environmental protection become the main axis around which the whole intrigue presented in the performance is built. Some artists go a step further – not only the plot is related to environmental protection, but also the puppets used in the performance are made of recycled materials or, as in the case of Wayang Sampah, created in Surakarta from garbage collected from the streets of the city. Such performances are not only meant to entertain, but above all serve to inform and educate – transmitting basic information about growing problems and demonstrating how, slowly, step by step, the local community can influence the surrounding environment through simple actions, and, consequently, influence the state of the entire planet.

• Shadows of Change: Environmental Activism and the Performing Arts in 21st Century Bali Laura Noszlopy Royal Holloway, University of London

  As an island nation, Indonesia faces increasingly severe environmental threats. Whether deforestation, air pollution, biodiversity loss, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, inadequate waste disposal, water shortage, or any combination of these, manmade problems threaten the lives and livelihoods of the archipelago’s people and, of course, its non-human inhabitants. The situation in Bali has been exacerbated by uncontrolled tourism development and its profound social and ecological consequences.

  The traditional performing arts, and wayang kulit (shadow puppetry) in particular, have always been a means to address cosmological and societal concerns through the use of adaptive lakon (narratives and plot devices) and creative imagery. Typically, performances have simultaneous ritual, pedagogic and entertainment functions. Since the late 20th century, Balinese dalang (shadow puppeteers), sometimes in collaboration with artists from other parts of the world, have integrated innovative storylines, musical scores and designs into the wayang kulit format; these innovations are also seen across several other genres of traditional performance.

  This paper will explore some of the ways in which contemporary dalang, and other artists and performers, are creating narratives and imagery about the environmental and climate crisis to address today’s most pressing and universal concerns. It will recount the life-stories and philosophies of various dalang and examine the key environmental factors, local and global, that influence their latest works. The paper will examine the different contexts in which these performances take place and consider whether and how audiences have changed over time. My research seeks to assess the extent to which such narratives and imagery are considered popular and useful as tools to influence, educate and signal resistance.

• Wayang Ritual Dramas in Cirebon (West Java, Indonesia) and Ecological Discourse, Past and Present Matthew Isaac Cohen University of Connecticut

  A mainstay of wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre) in the Cirebon cultural area of Java’s north coast are a cluster of ritual dramas. These are sponsored by communities in conjunction with annual rites that insure the blessings of ancestors, repel malevolent spirits and pests, insure fertility of crops and stocks of fish, bring rain and give thanks. Puppeteers act as both entertainers and ritual officiants, enacting ancient myths, reciting incantations and creating holy water. Plays depict an animistic universe, blurring distinctions between humans and animals, living and dead, visible and invisible. Not only human characters, but also nonhuman persons such as weapons, mountains, and animals, have consciousness and interiority. Communities are actively engaged in the proceedings through giving donations, selecting performing troupes, preparing offerings and participating in communal meals and processions. Indeed, ritual dramas have been key in defining communities and relations among them. These ritual dramas have been moments for agrarian and fishing communities to have a public conversation with visiting wayang troupes about their most pressing ecological issues. Wayang ritual dramas such as Mapag Sri (Greeting Sri) are still sponsored by some communities, though not as often as in the past due to modernization and religious shifts. However, the news is not all bleak. Starting in the early 2000s some communities sussed out that they could apply to central funds for annual events that could be entered into tourist calendars. In more recent years, villages, flush with funds devolved to the village level due to decentralization, have expanded the scope of annual celebrations to include participatory elements, such as elaborate processions. There are also villages that have elected to sponsor more elaborate dramatic forms than wayang, principally sandiwara (costume drama), and now present the old ritual dramas only in a curtailed form. While a number of ritual drama forms, such as an annual celebration sponsored by cattle owners, seem to have disappeared entirely, puppeteers remain sensitive to agrarian questions and needs, and find ways to discourse on ecological issues such as animal rights in plays sponsored outside of ritual cycles.

Abstract

Keywords

• Art
• Environment
• Heritage
• Indonesia