Innovation of Wayang Puppet Theatre in Bali

Abstract

Examining both village and school puppetry innovations within the last 40 years in Bali, this paper reflects on the processes of innovation, creation, and change within the wayang puppet production in different contexts, situations, agents, and tensions caused by a globalized world. Creative concepts, issues, theatrical methods, and challenges presented were expected to stimulate the artists, scholars, and delegates of the Bali Puppetry Festival and Seminar from many different countries to interact, share, learn, revitalize, create, and enrich the arts of puppetry in performances, workshops, seminars, exhibitions, and cultural visits from September 22–27, 2013 in Bali. As a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity wayang puppet theater has long been practiced in the Indonesian archipelago from the intangible spiritual norms to socio-cultural creativities, until it manifests into numerous tangible ritual practices of the people throughout the island of Bali. In the face of modern global entertainments, the reliable key to sustain wayang as the oldest extant theatrical form until this time is the creative tradition known as kawi dalang (I Nyoman Sedana, Kawi Dalang: Creativity in Wayang Theatre, Ph.D. dissertation. University of Georgia, 2002), which invariably urges the creativity and innovation. Although the Department of Puppetry Pedalangan study program of the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) Denpasar trains the students to master the traditional theatrical forms, the curriculum urges students to develop wayang theater through reinterpretation, innovation, creativity, digitalizing, transformation, redefinition, and reposition. Ultimately, they are required to present a devised innovative final project for 45 min before a public audience and dozens of selected examiners. The student’s performance must also be accompanied immediately by its performance script and comprehensive oral exam in order to earn an Indonesian academic puppetry degree of BA (awarded by ASTI until 1988), SSP, Seniman Sarjana Pedalangan (awarded by STSI until 2003), and currently S.Sn, Seniman Seni (awarded by ISI until this time). Recently, students majoring in wayang puppetry at the high school conservatory KOKAR/SMK 3 have also been exposed to similar creative innovations. While traditional creativity takes place in the villages and is sustained through the support of local people, the academically reviewed creative innovation only takes place in the campus mentioned above; each student’s final production is supervised under at least two members of academic advisers/committees. Innovations of wayang puppet theater in contemporary Indonesia, particularly in Bali and Java, is characteristically re-defined by varying local terminologies wayang eksperimen, wayang masa kini, wayang inovasi, wayang kontemporer, wayang kreasi baru, wayang garapan baru, wayang listrik, wayang modern, wayang kolaborasi, wayang drama modern, wayang dramatari, pakeliran layer lebar, pakeliran padat, pakeliran layar dinamis, pakeliran multimedia, pakeliran jangkep, and so on that basically mean wayang experiment, wayang new creation, wayang innovation, wayang today, contemporary wayang, wayang new composition, wayang electric, wayang modern, wayang collaboration, wayang drama modern, wayang dance-drama, wayang wide screen, wayang compact screen, wayang dynamic screen, and complete wayang multimedia. Three innovative wayang puppet styles that originated from final project academic presentation have spread out to all regencies and city through the all-Bali puppet competitions held by the provincial Cultural Arts Division. Such genres are the animal-based puppetry Wayang tantri by student puppeteer Made Persib, the chronicle-based puppetry Wayang babad by student puppeteer Serama Semadi, and Wayang arja opera puppet theater by I Nyoman Sedana. At least two successful academic puppeteers who graduated from the art institute are still very popular and making money from every night show at the average amount of an Indonesian professor earns monthly. From traditional perspective, these shadow puppet theaters are broadly grouped as the post-traditional puppet theater in the current context of global capitalism.