File puptcrit/puptcrit.0805, message 235


From: Rolande Duprey <puppetpro-AT-aol.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Fri, 9 May 2008 15:48:21 -0400
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Islam in wayang


Thanks, Kathy --
I knew it was a BIG question.

Rolande

On May 9, 2008, at 2:11 PM, Kathy Foley wrote:

> Islam of course is core to wayang. Though it began during the
> Hindu-Buddhist period, wayang on Java was profoundly reworked in the
> light of Islam. However the style of Islam is not what the average
> westerner is exposed too in our contemporary sound bites.  The Wali
> (saints of Islam who are credited with the performing arts) were
> generally of Sufi inclination and much of what we see in wayang is
> related to ideas which we find in alchemical traditions which emerge
> in the performing arts in many periods and places around the globe.
> The sufis where ever they turned up were heavily invested in the arts
> as metaphors of gnosis, ideas of the universe and its relation to
> self, union with the divine and related ideas. Music, dance, puppets
> and other abstractions from the confusing caughtness we experience
> from "reality" (everyday life and how it emeshes us in material and
> relational demands that lower our pursuit of absolute
> self-realization) are part of the method of thinking through
> existence.  Puppetry is a tool of becoming and puppeteers are
> powerful because practice exposes them on a daily basis to the truths
> and ideas. Art is a place where we experience what IS--though not
> every manipulator will get "it", one is more likely to-via this daily
> exposure to powerful ideas embedded in figures, music, poetry,
> stories, structure, etc., etc. One does religion and plays with dolls
> at the same time.
>
> There is no time or reason to explain it all here. And it is
> pointless since you only start to get a sense of the meaning when you
> have played with the puppets, sung the songs, etc. for a while.  But
> the ideas are all Islam--certainly as it has been thought and
> practiced by many from Turkey to Pakistan, India, south China,
> Champa, Indonesia for a thousand years.
>
>  Puppets and Sufis traveled together. This is not to say the Hindus,
> tantric Buddhists, gnostic Christians, Pythagorians,  Renaissance
> thinkers and other groups don't have some imagery and thoughts in
> common (Plato was writing about shadow shows with reason--though he
> advocated a western realist response that the puppet player might not
> have espoused). Puppets figure prominently  in the iconography of
> these groups because a puppet is a great image of our relationship to
> powers that animate the whole and make it dance.
>
>
> -- 
> Kathy Foley
> Professor, Theatre Arts
> Editor, Asian Theatre Journal
> J-15 Theatre Arts
> 1156 High St.
> Santa Cruz, CA 95064
>  tel. (831) 459-4189
> fax (831) 459-5359
> _______________________________________________
> List address: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
> Admin interface: http://lists.puptcrit.org/mailman/listinfo/puptcrit
> Archives: http://www.driftline.org

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