Extension activities

Menciptakan sandiwara wayang kulit kelas: Creating a class shadow puppet play

The logical and effective extension activity is to work together offline to create and perform a shadow puppet play. This can be done in many different ways.

The approach taken here is to allow students to adapt the wayang kulit tradition rather than trying to re-create it completely authentically. Brief suggestions or hints to help you are listed below:

The process
The story
The setting
Props and puppet characters
Music and sound effects

The process

From the hints above it is obvious that this is a very time consuming - but rewarding - activity. It will be best done as a transdisciplinary activity, involving Indonesian, classroom, art, music and drama teachers as appropriate.

The story

This is a completely open area. Where possible, students should storyboard and script the story for themselves. Some possibilities are:

• Re-telling part of one of the traditional wayang kulit stories from the Ramayana or Mahabharata. (see the online and offline Resources sections for sources of information)
• Re-telling a fable or fairy story from the European tradition. You can add an extra dimension by asking students to update the story to a modern setting or to focus on drawing out the moral/s of the story for the audience.
• Re-telling an Indonesian folk tale (see the online and offline Resources sections)
• Scripting a totally new story that deals with the battle or struggle between good and evil in some way - that is, writing their own version of this basic wayang kulit focus.

One excellent way to support students in re-telling an existing story is to ask them to read the story through twice and then to identify the key scenes in the story. They then storyboard (in Word or PDF) what the setting / action might look like, before doing detailed designs for the setting, props and characters or writing the script.

Students may need an introduction to the play script format. This example play script (in Word or PDF) shows how you tell which character is speaking, any directions for the action including sound effects and so on.

When deciding how much should be in Indonesian and how much in English, consider:

• the audience (probably non-Indonesian speaking)
• whether to have Indonesian followed by English
• whether you might mix Indonesian and English (as in this example)
• how you might use a narrator

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The setting

In traditional wayang kulit, the 'gunungan' is the only scene setting device. However students can design some simple settings (as shown in this learning object).

Settings can include:

• thin cardboard silhouettes with cut-outs eg a house with windows
• coloured cellophane shapes
   

Settings can:

• hang down from the top of the frame
• be sticky taped to the edges or fabric of the screen
• be projected onto the screen using an overhead projector

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Props and puppet characters

Consider first whether you want to use actual wayang kulit puppets or have students create their own character puppets, or a mixture of both.

Props and puppets are most easily created from thin cardboard. Students can 'incise' or carve details into the puppets carefully using craft knives on thick newspaper or boards. Puppets could also be brightly coloured, or coloured cellophane could be taped over some of the holes eg red cellophane over the eyeholes.

Encourage students to think about the significance of the colours and shapes they use, to match these to the characteristics of good and bad characters in wayang kulit.

Traditional wayang kulit props are weapons such as bows and arrows or the kris, but students could choose to create a wider range of props appropriate to the story they are telling.

Support for props and puppets could be made from stiff wire eg coat hangers, which can be bent into position on one or both sides of the puppet / prop, and taped into position. However it is easier to handle puppets if the central support is thin dowel, rather than wire. Thinner wire works well as the support for moving parts such as arms or jaws, as it isn't too heavy or clumsy looking.

To make moving parts such as at the shoulder, place sticky tape over the hinge area on the body and arm, then use a hole punch to create a round hole in each. Use a split pin to join them together.

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Screen and light source

Building a shadow puppet screen for use in your school is an excellent design project for students, perhaps in a design technology class. The class or technology teacher could present students with this simple design brief (in Word or PDF) as a group design activity, and the best design could be built by students. This sample diagram shows one possible design (in Word or PDF).

The light source could be a lamp, but an overhead projector allows students to play around with some other 'props' that are laid onto the glass stage of the overhead projector, including changing the colour of the light using coloured cellophane.

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Music and sound effects

Wayang kulit performances are accompanied by a gamelan orchestra, and the dalang also makes accompanying sound effects by tapping on the box (see background information in Word or PDF)

In the school setting, students could provide musical accompaniment using percussion instruments such as triangles, drums, xylophones. They could also use taped gamelan or other music. Sound effects also add a lot to any performance.

Students should consider the loudness (dynamics) and speed (tempo) of accompanying music, and how this contributes to the mood of a scene.

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