Selamat atas blog baru Mas Heru S. Sudjarwo (^___^)

Frankfurt Buchmesse (Frankfurt Book Fair) Germany, 6-10 October 2010

 

Pagelaran Wayang, or the Wayang Puppet Theatre, renowed for its elaborate puppets and complex musical styles. This ancient form of story telling originated on the Indonesian Island of Java. For ten centuries wayang flourished at the royal courts of Java and Bali as well as in rural areas. Wayang has spread to other islands (Lombok, Madura, Sumatra and Borneo) where various local performance styles and musical accompaniments have developed.

The Wayang Puppet Theatre still enjoy great popularity. However, the changing economic structure of Indonesia has led to a decreased interest in and demand for wayang performances, which jeopardizes artists’ livelihood and the transmission of their art. Furthermore, wayang is pressed to serve popular tastes that sometimes do not appreciate its traditional refined way of weaving humour into serious social and political commentaries. In this milieu, in November 2003, UNESCO proclaimed the Wayang Puppet Theatre a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, and the ensuing Action Plan aimed to encourage its revitalization as a living practice.

This book emerge as one of the many efforts to preserve this cultural heritage of humanity. The book presents about 520 wayang characters and the explanation of each character in detail as well as the brief storylines and philosophical background of the characters. The book is acknowledged as one of the most complete documentation of wayang based on the research which conducted by its author, Heru S. Sudjarwo, for more than 10 years.