The dominant type of performance throughout Bali,
though, is Wayang Parwa. Its performance is frequently held on many ritual and
religious occasions, both as entertainment and as a rite of passage. Broadly
speaking, this Wayang theatre consists of the sacred Wayang Lemah (day puppet,
without a screen) and the ceremonial Wayang Peteng (night puppet, with the
screen and oil lamp). All the stories are derived from the Indian epic
Mahabharata, including numerous related folk tales from which a dalang
frequently modifies and occasionally creates branch stories. Wayang Parwa is
the oldest standard puppetry in all aesthetics aspects of Wayang theatre in
Bali. Hence, dalang students in several training centres, especially in the two
government-sponsored schools (SMKI and STSI), are required to begin to learn
this type of performance before moving on to other types of Wayang. Lasting one
hour for the sacred Wayang Lemah and about two to four hours for the ceremonial
Wayang Peteng, the performance involves one dalang puppeteer, two assistants
and four musicians. The musical accompaniment is the quartet metallophone
(similar to, but taller than, the Western xylophone) Gender Wayang music
ensemble, although sometime it is reduced into one pair (two instruments) in
north Bali.
Before looking at a typical performance of this genre,
understanding what has happened in advance of the event itself is important
when examining Balinese performance – as much as the performance of a given
Shakespeare play will have been determined at the point of design and
conceptual decisions. The complex social, and sometimes religious, contextual
situation affects, in an intricate way, how the performance will be structured
and delivered. This applies not just to Wayang Kulit, the genre mainly under
scrutiny here, but for most performance situations in Bali. Even before a
specific performance is contemplated, the dalang has created the puppets and
thereby made decisions about style.
In Bali, the audience is the active subject that
invites the artists and also sponsors the performance. In contrast, in the West
the audience is a comparatively passive entity that gains the right to watch a
theatrical production by paying for admission. The patrons in Bali initiate and
arrange the schedule, as well as select the artists. They provide the
transportation, arrange for the food served at the event, set the performing
venue and provide the fee for the performers, an amount almost never fully
established in advance, which they pay immediately after the show. Balinese
artists are correspondingly more economically passive than the entrepreneurial
Western artists. All artists are trained in certain specialised repertoires and
performance genres, and focus on perfecting and producing their own artistry
without any effort to advertise or promote the performance. Artists await the
invitation and leave all issues concerning box office and marketing to the
patron.
An individual or a group of people with the intention
to commission a performance would, typically, first come to an artist’s house
and agree with the artist on the performing arts genre to be performed. The
theatre genres often commissioned include: Gambuh dance-drama with seven-toned
Pelog music, Wayang Wong theatre with Slendro Batel music, Parwa dance-drama
also with Slendro Batel music, Calonarang dance-drama with Gong Kebyar music,
Topeng masked theatre also with Gong Kebyar music, Arja opera with Geguntangan
music, Prembon with Gong Kebyar music and Wayang Kulit with its Gender Wayang
music. The genres are distinguished from each other more by the form (style of
dance/movement and acting, speech and diction, song repertoires, costumes,
stage property and musical accompaniment) rather than by the content (story or
play), although each genre implies its related repertoire of stories and the
dramatic characters associated with that repertoire. At the time of
commissioning a performance, however, the sponsor is concerned with the genre
and not with the specific play to be performed or characters to be presented.
Once an artist is hired and agrees to perform a given genre, the artist
prepares the performing devices, puppets, masks, costumes, musical instruments,
etc. belonging to the genre. When the sponsor wants Topeng, the artist is ready
with masks; when the sponsor selects Wayang Kulit, the artist brings the
puppets.
After the genre is set, the artist considers the
story. Many conventions regulate the aesthetic concepts and treatment of story
for each genre. The way the story will develop is regulated by the rules of the
genre, but the specific plot or presentation will be moulded by the artist’s
understanding of the repertoire from having viewed other performances of that
play or from the artist’s own interpretation of the episode. The dramatic
characters are the last features the artist considers. Although each genre has
in itself an implied number of stock characters (king, prime minister, sages,
prince, princess, servants, etc.), the specific identity or profile of each
character can only be established after the story is selected. The story
determines which kingdom is involved and who, in turn, is the king. For
example, if the story selected is a Mahabharata episode in the kingdom of
Amarta, Yudistira, the eldest of the five Pandava brothers will be the king.
Thus, the artist typically thinks first of the genre, then moves to the story
and finally thinks of the
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