THE MUSEUM OF WAYANG IN JAKARTA, INDONESIA

What is wayang ? You might ask. Wayang is traditional theater from Indonesia. There are many kinds of wayang : wayang kulit, wayang wong and wayang golek, wayang klitik, wayang beber. Wayang kulit refers to the play and the puppet. The play uses two dimensional puppet made from buffalo leather which are decorated with paint and carving. There is no puppet in wayang wong. Wong means human, so people play the story by dancing and singing. Wayang golek is three dimensional wooden puppet while Wayang klithik is two dimensional wooden puppet. Wayang beber is like giant comic. Stories of Java is painted on a large paper. There is no puppet. The most popular of all is wayang kulit, wayang golek and wayang wong.

Wayang kulit is from Java and Bali. Although the majority of Javanese people are Muslim, Indian stories of Ramayana (the story of King Rama) and Mahabarata (the story of Barata family) remain very popular. A Javanese king in the 11^th century had the stories translated from Sanskrit (old Indian language) into Javanese language. Since then Javanese writers had added some details to the stories so today the two stories in Javanese version are different from the Indian ones. Up to now wayang kulit is regularly performed in many parts of Indonesia among the Javanese community. The language is of course Javanese.

Yogyakarta and Surakarta are two cities in Java which are considered as the center of Javanese culture. In these cities wayang kulit are performed routinely. In the southern part of the Sultan’s palace of Yogyakarta there is wayang kulit performance once a month. When there are wedding party of rich people wayang kulit is also performed.

All of these wayang are accompanied by traditional music called gamelan. It consists mainly percussion made from bronze. Normally wayang kulit is performed at night. Do you know how long they perform? Eight hours! They start at nine and ends at five the next morning. For Javanese people it is more than just entertainment, there is also spiritual reasons.

Since the art is very popular, there are many people who work as traditional artist in Java. The best narrator or dalang in Javanese language earn good living. The traditional musicians earn less than dalang but they can rely on playing traditional music. A good team of wayang may earn at least 50 million Rupiah ( US $ 50,000) per night. They can work eight times a month.

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Wayang golek is very popular in west Java. It is played in Sundanese language which is different from the national language. The Indian epic of Mahabarata and Ramayana are also popular here.

Museum wayang in Jakarta is a place to preserve this cultural heritage. It is located in the old town of Batavia in North Jakarta. The museum collects wayang kulit, wayang golek and wayang beber from many parts of Indonesia but mainly from the island of Java. The museum also organizes wayang performances on the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th week of every month. They perform the Javanese wayang kulit, the Betawi wayang kulit and the Sundanese wayang golek.

In the photographs below you can see the screen where the wayang kulit is performed. The narrator or dalang sits cross legged in front of the screen while the musicians sit behind the dalang. The puppets are attached to banana tree under the screen.