Power Plays
Power Plays

Author: Andrew Noah Weintraub

Publisher: Ohio University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 089680240X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Based on ethnographic fieldwork spanning twenty years, Power Plays is the first scholarly book in English on wayang golek, the Sundanese rod-puppet theater of West Java. It is a detailed and lively account of the ways in which performers of this major Asian theatrical form have engaged with political discourses in Indonesia. Wayang golek has shaped, as well, the technological and commercial conditions of art and performance in a modernizing society. Using interviews with performers, musical transcriptions, translations of narrative and song texts, and archival materials, author Andrew N. Weintraub analyzes the shifting and flexible nature of a set of performance practices called Padalangan, the art of the puppeteer. He focuses on "superstar" performers and the musical troupes that dominated wayang golek during the New Order political regime of former president Suharto (1966-98) and the ensuing three years of the post-Suharto period. Studies of actual performances illuminate stylistic and formal elements and situate wayang golek as a social process in Sundanese culture and society. Power Plays includes an interactive multimedia CD-ROM of wayang golek. Power Plays shows how meanings about identity, citizenship, and community are produced through theater, music, language, and discourse. While based in ethnographic theory and methods, this book is at the center of a new synthesis emerging among ethnomusicology, anthropology, and cultural studies. Its cross-disciplinary approach will inspire researchers studying similar struggles over cultural authority and popular representation in culture and the performing arts.

Wayang Golek
Wayang Golek

Author: Peter Buurman

Publisher:

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since the early nineteenth century, foreigners have been fascinated by Javanese puppet theatre or wayang. This book is concerned with one form of wayang found exclusively in West Java or Sunda. Wayang golek is performed with three-dimensional wooden rod-puppets, and its repertoire ofstories is taken from the great Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Painting and Performance
Painting and Performance

Author: Victor H. Mair

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2019-03-31

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 0824881141

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this extraordinary work of scholarship, Victor Mair traces the global development over a thousand years of a genre of popular Buddhist folk literature from China known as pien-wen, pointing out its origins in India as a form of oral storytelling using painting as an aid, and showing how that form has influenced performance and literary traditions in India, Indonesia, Japan, Central Asia, the near East, Italy, France, and Germany. Professor Mair's research has important implications for students and scholars of literature, folklore, painting, religion, history, art, and theater and the performing arts, not to mention Chinese popular culture and Indian civilization.

Voices of the Puppet Masters
Voices of the Puppet Masters

Author: Mimi Herbert

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Indonesia's wayang golek puppet theater is among the world's oldest and richest puppetry traditions, contemporary with Japanese Noh drama and the mystery plays of Europe. The puppet masters, many of whom trace their skills back through seven or eight generations, are extraordinary artists. Some are shamans, and many are charismatic performers. The master carvers who create these three-dimensional wooden puppets boast similarly impressive genealogies, and their work draws equally on ancient mystical practices. As the puppet master Tizar Purbaya once explained, "The wayang puppet is not a doll. It follows the dalang [puppet master], but the dalang must also follow it. He gives it soul and it, in return, gives life to him."" "Voices of the Puppet Masters is based on five years of intensive research in Indonesia, including hundreds of hours of discussions and interviews with puppet masters and craftsmen. The author and her Indonesian collaborator visited the artists in their homes, in villages scattered across the length and breadth of Java, attending performances, and even participating in an exorcism ceremony. These performances typically last for many hours, sometimes through the night - theatrical extravaganzas blending religious mysticism with all of the frailties and strengths of the human condition, accompanied by song and a gamelan orchestra"--Publisher's description.

Theatre in Southeast Asia
Theatre in Southeast Asia

Author: James R. BRANDON

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 0674028740

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An astonishing variety of theatrical performances may be seen in the eight countries of Southeast Asia-Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Brandon's lively, wide-ranging discussion points out interesting similarities and differences among the countries. Many of his photographs are included here.