Bali Puppet Theatre Festival and Seminar
Sept 22-27 2013
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
I feel like Swiss tourist
Thomas Platter the Younger who in 1599 was in London and described a
performance Julius Caesar at the Globe Theatre. Except he did not describe it
so much as say it was well done and there was a dance by the performers
afterwards and men played women. When you think of what he could have written
down…and so it was in Ubud.
It is so hard to know what
is important to record, in case the traditions all go down in flames like at
the Globe Theatre. Certainly
there’s a devotion to flames in Balinese theatre as witness the opening cejak (Monkey
Dance) of the Bali Puppet Festival and Seminar where we were worried that the
large monkey army was going to set fire to the wooden stage, so enthusiastic
and spectacular was the throwing around of burning material, backed by a heavy
smell of kerosene.
That may be why this open
air theatre at Setia Darma House of Masks and Puppets backs onto the water
logged rice fields.
Luckily the Bali Puppet
Theatre Festival and Seminar wants to become an ongoing event and seems devoted
to preserving as much tradition as they can, not just from Bali but across
Indonesia and the world. The academic contingent was large, headed by keynote
speaker Professor Dato’ Dr Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof (Senior Academic Fellow,
International Islamic University Malaysia; Expert (Pakar) University Malalya)
who put the case for a deepening investigation of the local traditions
underlying wayang kulit in Java, Bali, Malaysia and Thailand. He also spoke
about hopes for the House of Masks and Puppets to become a world centre for
research.
Alongside the scholarly
sessions it was possible to see a large range of intriguing performances that
showed a huge range of traditions and methods. There were Phillipino puppets
where the head was operated by a strut gripped in the mouth, gently rounded and
funny Iranian puppets, and the fabulous Japanese Otome Bunraku soloist whose
exquisite female puppets and dark stories of love were accompanied by a
wonderfully sombre singer and a sober shamisen player.
There were also marionettes
from Myanmar whose personalities shone. They were a bit over knee height and
heavy to hold but there is something so winning and alive about the upturned
inquisitive faces of these little princes and princesses and dancers.
But it was the local
puppetry, with the local aficionados hanging around the stage and peering in at
the backstage workings, that was often the greatest attraction. None of this
western clearing of the stage of all inessential personnel. Every wayang kulit
was surrounded by people having a look backstage, even in those set ups where
the dalang (puppeteer) sat with back to the audience. They were crowding in to look at technique and skill. And if
the lighting was by oil lamp, the result was like some Eastern Rembrandt, full
of rich skin tones and dark shadows.
I had some idea of what to
expect, having been primed by some research, a little exposure to Thai theatre
forms and the delightful Wayang Kelly done some years ago at the National Folk
Festival. But there were unsuspected things like the Wayang Kancil, where
animals were the characters and where the dalang was very youthful but superbly
confident and a young female narrator and chorus had a hard hitting verve
backed by a skilful gamelan orchestra. Then there was the Wayang Potehi, which
turned out to be in the tradition of Chinese glove puppets, a clear testimony
to the history of Chinese enclaves in Indonesia.
I liked the slowly unfolding
pace of the Wayang Nawa Santhi, and the non shadow Wayang Cing Cing Mong where
wooden heads rolled from shoulders in battle scenes in a way reminiscent of the
hard headed violence of an English Punch and Judy show.
And I was surprised by the
Wayang Beber which does not really use puppets at all. Instead the dalang sits
back to the audience and holds up a scroll of pictures which is rolled on two
sticks as he narrates and the gamelan orchestra plays.
All of this was taking place
in the additional context of Ubud’s nightly parade of theatrical choices and
for a few days before the conference I made sure I saw enough to be able to
identify some forms and stories, catching shadow puppets, monstrous barongs, Ramayana
stories and repeated variations on the cejak that ranged from 100-man monkey
armies to a tiny group of five monkeys encircling Sita and Ravana under a
cunningly used single overhead light.
I had to leave before the end of the conference for the
theatre of a family wedding in Sydney, which meant unfortunately missing some
of the time devoted to more contemporary takes on puppetry and the uses of
modern technology but was able to catch ex Canberran puppeteer Peter Wilson’s
talk on the combination of old and new techniques being used to bring the huge
puppet King Kong to life in Melbourne as well as his work directing, producing
and co- writing Bali Agong for Bali Safari and Marine Park. The huge King Kong
puppet may use modern technology but Wilson showed that the skills of the physical
puppeteer remain crucial.
Artist-curator-collector Agustinus Prayitno[1],
of Setia Darma House of Masks and Puppets mused pertinently before the Festival
on the need to value indigenous cultures and to question the adoption of
‘global culture’. [2] And there is Agustinus Prayitno himself in the House in puppet form shown on equal footing with a puppet Barak Obama.
It’s hard to know what context Thomas
Platter was fitting Julius Caesar into. (Something for the tourists in
Elizabethan London? An illustration of quaint local customs?) Much tougher now
when so much global ‘entertainment’ is on offer. But the Festival and The House
of Masks and Puppets exist as a powerful living counter.
Alanna Maclean.
Especial thanks to Salmyyah Raheem for her assistance before and during
the Festival.
(Both
this link and that in footnote 1 do not seem currently to be working. Continuing to search for a linkable reference in English.)