A Dalang in Search of Wayang

Matthew Isaac Cohen

A Dalang in Search of Wayang

Matthew Isaac Cohen (Performer)

Drama

Research output: Non-textual form › Performance

Abstract

Wayang kulit, shadow puppetry from Java (Indonesia), unmoored from the puppet screen, unplugged from the accompanying gongs and chimes of the gamelan, without even a banana log for support. Illusions of omnipotence are shattered, the cosmic imbalance of myth made fact. Finding himself in a Pirandellian dilemma (how to achieve a Javanese wayang without a Javanese audience?), a London-based American scholar-practitioner turns to his old friend Semar for counsel, like knights-errant of yore. This interactive performance is a comedy of ideas, a discourse on tradition in modernity and a stubborn enactment of time-honoured practice in a transnational context.

Original language	Multiple languages
Publication status	Published - 2011

Access to Document

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvZGP2lQ0d0

Cite this

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AB - Wayang kulit, shadow puppetry from Java (Indonesia), unmoored from the puppet screen, unplugged from the accompanying gongs and chimes of the gamelan, without even a banana log for support. Illusions of omnipotence are shattered, the cosmic imbalance of myth made fact. Finding himself in a Pirandellian dilemma (how to achieve a Javanese wayang without a Javanese audience?), a London-based American scholar-practitioner turns to his old friend Semar for counsel, like knights-errant of yore. This interactive performance is a comedy of ideas, a discourse on tradition in modernity and a stubborn enactment of time-honoured practice in a transnational context.

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