'Wayang' consoles grieving community

'Wayang' consoles grieving community

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Kuta, Bali

The hundreds of people who had flocked to the Kuta Square Arcade
on that Saturday night could not take their eyes off the giant
white screen. On the screen, the imposing shadow of Delem, the
perennial coward par excellence of Balinese shadow puppet theater
(wayang kulit), was busy giving a pep talk to a group of young
giants.

"You have got to destroy everything, show no mercy, OK? Kill
the man, slaughter the animals, destroy the village, raze the
forest and topple the mountain, OK?" Delem shouted in his
irritatingly cocky voice.

Soon, the young giants wreaked havoc on the screen. And,
immediately the fictional carnage brought painful memories back
to the spectators.

Just a few weeks before, a suicide bomber had detonated a
deadly bomb in a restaurant in that arcade, killing dozens of
people and inflicting a deep psychological wound on the
community.

"This performance is aimed at consoling the grieving
community, persuading people to cope with the tragedy as a
single, unified community, and to motivate them to fight the
violence in a healthy, peaceful manner," the chief dalang
(puppeteer), I Made Sidia, said.

The performance was sponsored by the Yayasan Kemanusiaan Ibu
Pertiwi (YKIP), which had carried out extensive post-bombing work
to assist the traumatized communities, as well as the Annika
Linden Foundation.

Sidia, a young and brilliant dalang, had prepared a special
story to uplift the spirit of the people. It was aptly titled
Dasa Nama Kertha (The Ten Names of Peace).

Modern Wayang

The Dasa Nama Kertha (DNK) is the modernized version of
traditional Wayang Kulit shadow puppetry, one of the most popular
performing arts in Bali.

Inspired mostly by Hinduism's great epics, the Mahabharata and
Ramayana, and, to a lesser degree by the Indian fable of Tantri
and the Javanese court stories of Panji, wayang kulit has for
centuries provided the Balinese people with both captivating
entertainment and profound moral and philosophical directions.

The onslaught of modern audiovisual entertainment, however,
has gradually driven wayang kulit to near extinction. It has
turned into an outdated art form that is disconnected from the
real, everyday lives of the contemporary Balinese, particularly
the young people of the island's most urbanized areas of Denpasar
and Badung.

For these young people, Hollywood movies and hip-hop music are
the most popular forms of entertainment. An ancient Japanese
samurai played by an obviously American Tom Cruise is the
ultimate source of morals.

Several dalang have tried to resuscitate wayang kulit and get
it back on the main stage again by imitating best-selling recipes
from Hollywood along the lines of Basic Instinct and Rambo: more
sex and action.

The recent, growing popularity of Wayang Cenk Blonk and
Wayang Joblar owe much to the puppeteers daring experiments with
political critique, sensual allusions, outright social jokes and
prolonged fight scenes. The experiments have often gone too far
with the real story buried so deep under heaps of attractive
improvisations that the spectators fail to get the point.

Furthermore, this sort of improvisation could have dangerous
albeit subtle ramifications. It could turn wayang kulit into the
kind of art that glorifies violence and sex.

DNK is also the result of similar experimentation with
elements drawn from modern entertainment. However, Sidia has
managed to maintain the integrity and clarity of the story and
its message.

The enhancements included a giant screen, the utilization of
computer-processed digital images and in-focus projector to cast
various colorful backdrops on the screen, strobe lights and
modern musical instruments.

Sidia has also created numerous new characters, from an African
Flamingo and Sundanese rhinoceros to a present-day Balinese
teenage girl with gyrating hips and Western attitudes.

To cope with the gigantic size of the screen and the larger
than usual wayang characters, Sidia employed six puppeteers for
the performance. These puppeteers sat on a wheeled wooden
platform which enabled them to quickly glide into the corners
behind the screen. These platforms have earned DNK the nickname
of Skateboard Wayang from the island's expatriate community.

Sidia created DNK in 2002 following the brutal terrorist
bombings in Kuta that killed at least 202 people, mostly
foreigners. He has performed DNK several times in Kuta and other
places on the island to both calm and comfort the people.

DNK was inspired by an episode from the ancient palmyra
manuscript of Siwa Tattwa, illustrating the victory of peace over
the brutal violence of the demons.

"It was my father that first told me the story. He convinced
me that it was the perfect story for that difficult period
because it teaches people how to overcome hardship and violence
without succumbing to hatred and desperation," Sidia explained.

His father was I Made Sidja of Bona, an eccentric dalang who
could transform a cigarette butt or a single leaf into a
mesmerizing wayang character.

Rampaging Demons

The story starts with the anguish of Lord Siwa, who came to
earth in frantic search for his long-lost wife, Uma. On earth, he
found that Uma had transformed into Durgha, the terrifying queen
of the giants and demons. In frustrated anger, Siwa was
transformed into Kala Rudra, the embodiment of the cosmic force
of violent destruction.

Soon, Kala Rudra and Durgha led their armies of angry giants
on rampages that set the world on fire -- literally. People were
massacred and kingdoms were destroyed in their meaningless and
motiveless war against humanity.

Even Arjuna, the most skillful of Pandawa's warriors, could
not stop the wanton carnage.

"You cannot fight fire with fire. You cannot fight anger with
hatred. By doing so, you only transform yourself from a victim
into a perpetrator, from the killed into the killer," Sidia
warned while the whole screen turned bright red with blood and
frustration.

Eventually, Arjuna sought divine guidance. The four major
deities appeared in the sky, promising the exhausted warrior that
they would fight Kala Rudra themselves.

Surprisingly, Brahma, Wisnu, Iswara and Bayu descended on
earth unarmed and in peaceful mood. Brahma appeared as the dancer
in the masked Topeng Bang dance, Wisnu as the dancer in the
masked Telek dance, Iswara as the dancer in the Barong dance and
Bayu as a wayang kulit puppeteer.

Instead of charging into the giants' restless columns, the
deities performed their arts serenely, evoking the divine spirits
that resided in every sentient being, including in the hearts of
the giants, and in the hearts of Kala Rudra and Durgha

The Somya

The sacred Topeng Bang, Telek, Barong and Wayang Kulit are
still performed regularly at every major temple festival in Bali
up to the present day.

This shows that the teachings of Siwa Tattwa on the
superiority of peace to violence is an integral part of Balinese
religious faith and life.

"It also displays the important role that aesthetic beauty
occupies in the Balinese Hindu's belief system," said Balinese
scholar Ketut Sumartha.

The fact that the Balinese Hindu believes that the universe
was created by Siwa through a dance, known as the Siwanataraja,
proves the importance of aesthetic beauty. Moreover, the Balinese
also believe that plagues and disasters can be prevented by
performing those aforementioned sacred dances at certain times of
the year.

"This month, for example, is believed to be a period of
turmoil in the Balinese traditional calendar. Many communities in
Gianyar and Klungkung have already organized performances of
sacred barong in their respective villages to ward off any
potential disasters," he said.

This belief also stems from the teaching of the three main
pillars of Balinese Hinduism; Satyam (Truth), Siwam (Divinity)
and Sundaram (Beauty).

"It is the primary guiding principle for a true Balinese. It
is not enough that your thoughts, deeds and words be true and
pure but they must also reflect beautiful," he added.

The emphasis on aesthetic beauty was later manifested in the
concept of Somya, a return to innocence.

In the DNK, the four deities defeated the demons not by
killing them but by elevating their consciousness, thus, making
them realize their own aesthetic, peaceful inner selves. The
deities had helped the giants to return to their true selves,
their innocence. That was Somya.

Toward the end of DNK, the giants, mesmerized by the sacred
dances, kneeled in shame before the deities -- tears flowing from
their eyes as they begged for forgiveness. In the end, they
became aware of the divine in their hearts.

"We are part of a single universe. A destruction of one part
will soon lead to the annihilation of all," Sidia said.

The ten names

The future of the universe lies in mankind's ability to
prevent the destruction of any single part of the ten names of
peace. Interestingly, the ten names are not made up of sacred
incantations or esoteric texts. Instead, the ten names are the
representations every existing being.

"Siwa Tattwa states that the ten names are earth, fire, water,
wind, plant, animal, fish, bird, human and god," Sidia said.

If mankind failed, he warned, to protect and nurture any of
the ten names then the cosmic order will fall into a state of
imbalance and various violent natural or manmade disasters would
quickly take place.

"We are part of a single universe. The destruction of one part
will soon lead to the annihilation of all," Sidia said.

With these words, he concluded his fabulous performance,
sending his dazzled spectators back home with a new realization
of the futility of violence, the importance of peace, the
interdependence of every sentient being and the need for Somya.