MUSIC Unit 4 – Musical Theater and Festivals of

Asia Lesson 3
Indonesian Theater
Shadow Puppet Theater is a well-known
Indonesian theater popular not only in their own
country but spread in several countries around the
world.
WAYANG KULIT • (in Central Java) is one of the
oldest continuous traditions of storytelling in the
world which includes the use of puppet materials
and background musical accompaniment to make it
interesting to the audience Indonesian Theater
 Wayang is an Indonesian and Malay word for
“theater”.
 When the term is used to refer to kinds of
Puppet Theater, sometimes the puppet itself is
referred to as wayang.

Kulit means skin and refers to the leather

construction of the puppets that are carefully-cut
into a very fine tools and supported with carefully-
shaped buffalo horn handles and control rods.
The PERFORMANCE
1. The audience is the most important person in a
Wayang Kulit performance.
• The dalang prepares all the materials used like
the cloth and the light for the shadow.
• The puppet on the right side signifies the good
character, on the left hand side, the bad.
• The open space between them, about 2 meters
wide, represents the stage.

2. The DALANG is the puppeteer

• is characterized by his being creative,
humorous, and flexible
• manipulates the puppets, sings, and taps out
signals to the orchestra
• speaks the parts of all the characters
 The use of voice interchangeably is the main
ability of a dalang to give more life to a
different character.
  The dalang is the chief performer who told a
story to the accompaniment of gamelan
ensemble.

Wayang Kulit was performed in royal court and

widely performed in public on religious occasions.

3. The Music: GAMELAN

GAMELAN Ensemble • is comprised mainly by
bronze percussion instruments augmented by
other percussion instruments, strings, and a flute.
a. Saron – xylophone of heavy bronze bars
b. Gender – bronze xylophone with resonance
chambers beneath
c.Bonang – set of bronze bowls
d.Gong and Kempul – hanging gongs
e. Kenong and Ketuk – single inverted bronze
bowl
f.Gambang – wooden xylophone
g.Rebab – two-stringed fiddle
h. Suling – flute 25. 9. Kendang – horizontal
drum beat with the fingers on both ends
 i. Tjelempung – a zither of thirteen double
strings

SULUK
The dalang sings the mood songs (suluk) at regular
intervals during performance.
• Suluk are never accompanied by the full gamelan
ensemble.
• Often a single instrument accompanies the
singer, never more than three or four.