Society And The Artist; The Puppet And Its Shadow

Last Saturday morning we were at Balai Seni Negara, the National Art Gallery, to visit its conservation unit, to pore over its collection of wayang kulit puppets.Balai has over two hundred puppets. All belonged to a Kelantanese dalang (shadow-play puppet master), Abdullah Ibrahim, the legendary Pak Dollah Baju Merah.+Shadow puppetry as practiced in Kelantan was a popular artform. Troupes of dalangs and their musicians would tour villages all over the northern states. Crowds will turn out for shows. Mass entertainment before electric media.While its narrative root is the Ramayana, and will include some beats from the Hindu epic, a wayang kulit performance is a pastiche of side stories, tangents into other mythic cycles and indigenous folklore, lots of improv and ad-libbing.The mukadimah of a wayang show is casual, familiar, and might be two hours long. The dalang plays scenes that comment on and critique local and current affairs. A form of community news media.Audiences are active…