These puppet shows known as Wayang Kulit are done with shadow puppets and depicts life with its incongruities and contradictions and teach the purpose and meaning of life. Mythological stories or legend are also staged in this form of performing art.
Wayang Kulit with its origin in Central Java is one of the oldest and highly developed continuous story-telling traditions in the world. In the year 2003, the UNESCO declared the Wayang Puppets Theater of Indonesia as a "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity"
According to Javanese terminology- "Wayang" means 'shadow' or 'ghost' and "kulit" means 'leather', when joined together, they mean "shadow from leather". It is called so as this flat or round puppets made of buffalo leather are projected before a backlit screen so that shadow images of these puppets are visible. Altogether 'Wayang Kulit' consists of a theatrical performance of live actors (wayang orang) as well as the three or two dimensional puppets (wayang golek). These puppets are the conventionalized magnification of a human shape.
The puppets used in Wayang Kulit reflect great craftsmanship and are usually made by scraping thin parchments of goats or buffaloes. The best puppets are created from the hides of young female water buffalo while ordinary puppets are made from thick buffalo hides, sticks and rice straw and even scrap metal or cardboard.
These puppets have varying heights of 10 to 30 inches and have swiveling arms.
The superior puppets are painted with traditional colors including indigo, yellow ochre, powdered burnt bone for white, cinnabar and lampblack. All these colors are blended with egg tempera and fish glue and other mediums and accented with gold leaf. Cheaper puppets are done in store paint and gilt.
In fact the characters of the shows are identified by their color, for instance- the mythological figure Vishnu is represented in black, Lord Siva has a golden face.
The red color depicts a fervid temperament while white represents youth and innocence.
The virtuous and elegant characters have a small body and stature while the violent characters have bodies, bigger and rounder eyes and noses.
Significant characters are represented by different versions in a set. Apart from the characters of Gods and characters, there are also puppets of various animals and birds!
These beautiful puppet shows may last up to nine hours and is a great source of entertainment for all sections of the society.
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