Wayang

I always remember to my childhood time when there is a wayang performance. No mater what day it was I always with some friends came and joint the performance. Saturday night was special day because the following day will be no school. So I came before the performance begun. Generally it was begun at 9 – 10 PM until the next sun raise.
This article will give you very small and shallow part of what wayang is. Wayang had already known in Indonesia 1500 BC when people were animism.
They worship their great-grandmother in the form of statue or picture. One of these forms is wayang. In wayang, either on the surface performance or in the story that is told has very deep philosophy. This article of wayang just a preliminary introduction of wayang. In fact, wayang can not be described in a short of passage. There are a lot of disciplines. Some part of its histories still under debate that is for instance the origin. Because wayang always has its own dynamics. Many competent people developed and modified wayang according to their tastes, purposes and styles. The main sources of Java wayang play were Mahabharata and Ramayana. Even the story of wayang performed not only standard story like Mahabharata or Ramayana. Dalang as a play director can creates any story out of the standard one.

Wayang(s) mostly is made of sheep or cow leather. That is why wayang also named as ‘wayang kulit’ (kulit means leather). It is formed to real human configuration by curving up fineness and painting them beautifully and colorful. Every single wayang performs a single character. So in the story will represent particular symbol and role. Wayang is also played by men and women, it is called ‘wayang orang’. This play exactly is a drama dance. It consist of dancing, musics and songs. Dalang in wayang orang has role exactly as in ‘wayang kulit’. He is a play director.
In the play wayang is always companied by a set of gamelan music instruments and some singers. There are many types of instrument in a set of gamelan and have different type of sound and its method to play them. Beside gamelan has a lot of rhythm and each rhythm has different senses. Each rhythm is also played in different timing, it creates specific mood.