Global Impact on the Survival of Wayang Kulit ... - Siew Lian Lim

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experience cannot be replicated by watching a video. Hence, all of the dalang view teaching a new generation the craft and performance of Wayang Kulit as a major challenge that faces Wayang Kulit in Malaysia. The problem is that the tradition for training a dalang is an apprenticeship system where the title of dalang is bestowed by the teacher. According to Malaysian film critic Fikri Jermadi, who has written extensively about Wayang Kulit as the original form of film, “… the most important part of one’s apprenticeship is to actually gain the tok dalang’s trust. And the trust is not easily given: one would wait a period of roughly five years before being truly accepted as a tok dalang in one’s own right. You could complete a doctorate at an American university in the same amount of time. It doesn’t take a genius to see which would be the choice of many.” While Pak Dain adheres strongly to this tradition, the other dalang interviewed offered alternatives like teaching Wayang Kulit in schools, universities, and in their workshops with government support, and Eyo Hock Seng's teaching Western children Wayang Kulit at the The International School of Kuala Lumpur, which exposes Westerners to this art form. Training foreign students in Wayang Kulit is another approach to increasing the likelihood of Wayang Kulit's survival. Two of the dalang, Pak Majid and Pas Soh, have each trained a Japanese woman. Both women took Wayang Kulit back to Japan where they adapted it to Japanese culture. Matthew Isaac Cohen, Professor of International Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London, observed three Kelantanese Wayang Kulit performances by Eyo Hock Seng, the only Chinese tok dalang. His visit is significant because he has specialized in performing arts of Indonesia, where Wayang Kulit thrives as part of national identity, and has trained there as a dalang. He found a thriving Wayang Kulit tradition in Kelantan, and even entertained the possibility of training as a dalang in Kelantan. One American woman, Beth Osness, did train as a dalang with Tok Dalang Hanzah Awang Hamar, studied in Malaysia with scholar Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof, and has taught Malaysian Wayang Kulit at Colorado State University in Fort Collins (Osness). While no performance company was established by Dr. Osness, two notable American students of Balinese Wayang Kulit have - Maria Bodman of Bali and Beyond in Los Angeles and Larry Reed, whom I interviewed in 2010, of ShadowLight Productions in San Francisco (Lim). After 10 years full immersion training starting in 1974 involving his training as a dalang with I 22
Nyoman Sumandhi, a Balinese dalang who was teaching gamelan at the University of Washington at the time (Jungwiwattanaporn) and with Sumandhi’s father, I Nyoman Rajeg, in Bali, he established ShadowLight Productions. While he continues to perform traditional Balinese Wayang Kulit on occasion, he has expanded his repertoire to what he calls Shadow Theater with innovations and adaptations (Reed). In the performance I saw prior to our interview, The Good for Nothing Lover, he used live actors to cast shadows; the actors wore masks so that the shadows resembled puppets. He also used video for the first time for background scenes. Another innovation, significant in relation to cultural globalism, is his drawing on the mythologies of various indigenous groups to be found in San Francisco, including Native Americans, Latin Americans, and Chinese. For each of these groups he performs in their native languages as well as English. Reed's use of live actors to cast shadows was paralleled in Malaysia by Makasini Theatre Company in Kuala Lumpur who staged Wayang from May 20 to May 23, 2011, a depiction of Malaysian history from the fifties to the present, using live dancers to cast shadows (James). Malaysian media reported on Wayang Kulit performances at various events, most typically by Pak Majid, but they also reported on a traditional performance from Kelantan, Persatuan Penggiat Seni Budaya Kelantan, at the Boulevard Hotel in Kuala Lumpur (Devan). In addition there are reports on other variations on this art form. In 2005, Eddin Khoo, Kelantanese shadow puppet master, Abdullah Ibrahim, and British novelist, playwright, and illustrator Edward Carey presented a Wayang Kulit version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Sulaiman and Elizabeth). This represents a global approach to Wayang Kulit which is particularly significant since Eddin Khoo is director of the non-governmental organization, Pusaka, set up to preserve and promote Malaysia’s traditional art forms (Surin). In another variation, a puppeteer from Canada, Jeff Achtem uses scrap materials to make simple puppets that cast shadows that do not resemble the puppets (Indramalar). Achem does not see his puppets as artwork but as tools to make shadows which are the art, similar to the shadow sculpture of the Tim Noble and Sue Webster team of London and Japanese-American artist Kumi Yamashita of New York. The Tree Theatre Group, on the other hand, is closer to traditional Wayang Kulit, but uses contemporary images to convey messages about protecting the environment (Tree Theater). One adaptation of Wayang Kulit that was not mentioned by the interviewers is the use of 23
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Page 4 and 5: is visible by the audience. Stories
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Page 10 and 11: number of musicians to nine since s
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Page 14 and 15: However, the stories Eyo Hock Seng
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Global Impact on the Survival of Wayang Kulit ... - Siew Lian Lim

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