New Pictures

New photos from the Wayang Rakyat show at The Curve on 20 October 2007.

Photos by Khoo Eng Yow.

Painting Puppets

After the first performance of Projek Wayang's Wayang Rakyat, entitled 'Sang Kancil dan Sang Buaya', several members of the audience stepped up and asked how we made the puppets. We used perspex instead of leather (it's a reflection of what environment we're in, one can posit) and painted them as you can see below.

This is Aziz painting the Pohon Konsumerism.

Taken by Gan Siong King. Puppets designed by Fahmi Reza.


























(more pics here)

Sang Kancil @ The Curve (Part 3)

Final part of Sang Kancil dan Sang Buaya.

Sang Kancil @ The Curve (part 2)

Second part of the Sang Kancil story.

Sang Kancil @ The Curve (part 1)

This is our first Projek Wayang video, ever!

Part 1 of 3. More to come.

Pak Pandir!

Here's a very quick look at the soon-to-be-made Pak Pandir puppet, that will be making its first public appearance at The Curve this Saturday, 20 Oct, and Sunday, 21 Oct! It's not the final design yet, but it's nearly there (we're getting rid of the mustache, which isn't really working).

Designed by Fahmi Reza.

Updated Flyer

Here's the updated flyer for our performances at The Curve. Feel free to distribute!

New timings for Projek Wayang shows at The Curve

Hi guys,

Just to inform you that there's been a small change in the Wayang Rakyat performances at The Curve, because of requests from the organizers. Here are the three remaining performances, along with time and titles:

7 Oct - 2pm - Sang Kancil and Sang Buaya
20 Oct - 2pm - Pak Pandir and the Pot of Honey*
21 Oct - 2pm - Pak Pandir and the Pot of Honey*

(*title might change to Pak Pandir and the Fighting Rooster)

Please note that the children's puppet workshop will still be happening at 12pm on both 20 and 21 October 2007.

Venue is still the center court at The Curve.

Pics from gig at The Curve

Sang Monyet monkeying around on-screen, after the show at The Curve. Projek Wayang was situated at the center court of the mall.















Azmyl Yunor, having a go at being the dalang :)















A blurry shot of Aziz (left) and Azmyl (right) as they fiddled with the puppets after the show.

We'll try and take more pics at the next performance, which is this coming Sunday, 7th October, at 2pm (more on change of time later).

First public performance of wayang rakyat

Yesterday was Projek Wayang's first full performance of wayang rakyat - a shadow puppetry form based on and adapted from the Wayang Kulit Siam tradition that tells Malayan/Malaysian folk stories (such as the mischievous mousedeer, Sang Kancil, and the blundering village fool, Pak Pandir). It was performed in a mall, quite apt since a lot of Malaysians linger in these behemoths of capitalist enterprise.

From what I noticed after the 20-minute performance, people were very happy to have caught the show; it's probably something they didn't expect to happen in a mall!

Some pics to come, and hopefully by the time we re-perform this show next Sunday, we'll get someone to video it.

Flyer from the Flers

Hi guys,

Just a quick flyer that Aziz made while at the office and not doing work (haha, thanks Aziz).

Feel free to download and distribute.

Wayang Rakyat at The Curve

Hi guys and gals,

Projek Wayang is proud to announce our latest public performance, almost in conjunction with Hari Raya festivities: Wayang Rakyat @ The Curve. Featuring Aziz Ali, Azmyl Yunor, and Fahmi Fadzil, with puppets by Fahmi Reza.

There will be two performances over four dates, with two workshops on introductory puppetmaking for kids.

30 September, 4.30pm - Sang Kancil and Sang Buaya
7 October, 4.30pm - Pak Pandir and the Bowl of Honey*
20 October, 2.30pm - Sang Kancil and Sang Buaya
21 October, 2.30pm - Pak Pandir and the Bowl of Honey*

(*title might change)

Synopses
Sang Kancil and Sang Buaya
One day, as he was walking around the jungle, Sang Kancil spots a grove of fruit trees across the river. As he tries to cross the river, he encounters the fearsome Sang Buaya, who is intent on eating the little mouse deer. What will Sang Kancil do to get at those fruit trees?

Pak Pandir and the Bowl of Honey
Mak Andih has grown tired of Pak Pandir's loafing around the house, so she sends him out to gather things from the jungle that they could sell. Pak Pandir finds some honey, and bringing it home decides to eat it instead of selling it, against Mak Andih's wishes. What becomes of Pak Pandir and his greedy ways?

Flyers should be out soon.

Wayang Beber Kota

Earlier this year, I met up with Dani Iswardana of Wayang Beber Kota, a contemporary Wayang Beber troupe based in Solo, Indonesia. Wayang Beber is often thought of as a dead art, with barely any practitioners, yet here we have a three-man troupe (consisting of Dani, the STSI-trained visual artist, Tri Ganjar Wicaksono, the 17-year old dalang, and Agung PW, the guy I've been closely in touch with, who've also set up the WBK website).

Projek Wayang is trying to see if there are any possibilities of collaboration in the near future, so I'm going over in the early part of next year to learn about their work and how they operate in a contemporary setting.

Back from Bangkok!

Azmyl and I had a wonderful romp in Bangkok. The show we put up was good, although it could've been tighter, but there was much reflection on the work - regarding context, depth and direction. All in all, it was a fun festival to have attended. I didn't get to force someone to take pics of our performance, but I'm sure the organizers have some. When it pops up in the email I'll post it up here.

Oh, and I lost my voice by the end of our performance, haha!

Live Arts Bangkok flyer!

This is the e-flyer for the upcoming Live Arts Bangkok arts festival that Azmyl and I will be traveling to. We'll be performing Wayang Buku on August 18th at the Kukrit Pramoj Heritage House. Do drop by if you're in Bangkok then!

Kakiseni Review of Dua, Tiga Dalang Belari

Here's a review of Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari, by Zedeck Siew of Kakiseni. Poot!

Wayang Buku to Bangkok!

We're very happy to announce that Wayang Buku - one of the forms developed in 2006 as a means to investigate the performance and performativity of books - has just been invited to the Jim Thompson House: Live Arts Bangkok festival.

Azmyl Yunor and Fahmi Fadzil will be performing Wayang Buku 17-19 August 2007 at the Jim Thompson House Library in Bangkok.

Details to follow.

NST Review

A review of Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari by Lim How Ngean of the New Straits Times! Enjois.

The Running Puppeteers

We've recently completed Mark Teh's Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari (Five Arts Centre), a documentary theatre performance that presents the lives of Malaysia's two most important dalangs (shadow puppeteers) - Pak Hamzah Awang Amat and Pak Dollah Baju Merah (or Abdullah bin Ibrahim) - alongside cheeky takes on the Betara Kala story from the wayang kulit Siam performance repertoire. It was toured in several colleges and universities within the Klang Valley as well as a 3-night public performance at The Annexe @ Central Market.

While not directly a Projek Wayang endeavor, this project marked the successful collaboration among KL art practitioners from various fields in an attempt to engage with the wayang kulit Siam tradition. More will surely come out of this!

While waiting for reviews, we serve you an array of wonderful photographs of the production when it was performed at Taylors University College, Subang Jaya, taken by Myra Mahyuddin.

Ucap Mula - a Beginning

Over the last few years, a group of young arts practitioners - visual artists, stage performers, musicians, graphic designers, writers - have been working towards understanding the Wayang Kulit Siam performance, the Kelantanese variant of the South East Asian shadow puppetry form.

This understanding is then translated into new performance forms - experimentations, really - that help to consolidate our findings or to articulate certain questions we have about what we have found so far. Working from form and traveling inwards into the narrative structure of the wayang form, we have had to attend to questions as elementary (though not simple) as "Why the use of leather?", "Why electric bulbs and not an open flame?", to "What does it mean to improvise?", among many others.

We hope that through learning this wayang form as a point of departure, we can eventually acquire some measure of performance sensibility and a degree of understanding of why wayang developed like it did in Kelantan (and also its sister forms in Java, Cambodia, Thailand, et al), and how a city like Kuala Lumpur (where most of us are currently based) can tell her stories through her own form of wayang.

This blog is a collection of exploits, thoughts, and articulations of our adventures in wayang.