Shadow puppet is one of Balinese art performance that undergoes great changes in many ways only in the course of twenty years. Out of hundreds shadow puppeteers all over the island only some of them adopt the changes, some of them adopt only few changes and some remain with traditional style.

The significant changes that are adopted by the modern shadow puppet are mainly in the lighting, musical accompaniment, characters of the puppet, and content of the story.

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Here is an interesting piece of writing on the growing trend of buying offerings for religious ceremony which is taken from Scott A Johnsen’s thesis which is entitled From Royal House to Nation: The Construction of Hinduism and Balinese Ethnicity In Indonesia.

Many Balinese now regularly purchase offerings, from small offerings for use in the houseyard to all the offerings needed for a life-cycle or temple anniversary ritual. On a positive reading, one often hears that this is more efisien than making all offerings oneself. On a negative reading, it is now common to hear the complaint that Balinese too often purchase their offerings, instead of making them themselves. For example, an offering specialist in Tabanan regency laments this change, commenting in Bali Aga magazine:

Now it is not like in the past, when making offerings for [rituals – lists offerings for marriages, mortuary rituals, etc.] was done with others as a duty (ngayah). There did not used to be people buying offerings as is done today, everything were done oneself. I learned from my grandmother. Now, since it is normal to buy them, no one makes offerings every evening if a relative is having a ritual.

In Bangli, I also encountered clear sentiments along these lines. For example, at a shadow puppet performance by one of my sources, a character urged women to make their own offerings: “Young women should study to make canang [kind of common offering], so they don’t always have to buy them. Studying this is proper for women.” A woman from the city of Bangli who worked in the capital, Denpasar, told me that the feeling of solidarity is much greater in Bangli. In her ward in Denpasar they buy the offerings and spend two days at most preparing for temple anniversaries (as opposed to one or two weeks in Bangli). A village official in Bangli told me that the use of purchased offerings lessens the feeling of mutual assistance (gotong royong) that derives from collective preparations for a ritual. In Sanur (highly touristed area in South Bali), an older woman told me that there did not used to be any people selling offerings, but now if there is a cremation on short notice (ngaben mendadak) usually most of the offerings are purchased. I heard from sources in Denpasar and in Bangli that people in Denpasar are more likely than many other Balinese to buy offerings. One source said this was because people in Denpasar are “a bit modern”, while another said that they are becoming more individualistic and do not have as much time as people elsewhere. In less urban areas, purchasing offerings can have connotations of failure: it is evidence that one could not mobilize sufficient labor.

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The first day of Classical Dance and Drama Performance (9/27/2007) was a kind of traveling back to the forgotten era of Balinese dance and drama performance. The performances which took place in Art Centre Denpasar, began at 7:30 PM, on an open stage, luckily no there was no rain pouring down.

The first performance that night was Leko dance from Jembrana regency. Leko is a type of social dance, may be a flirtation dance as a matter of fact, the ancestor of widely popular Joged Bumbung dance. In old days, Leko was a palace dance, designed for the entertainment of the king, nowadays it is a popular social dance that anybody can enjoy and participate. It is performed by a pairs of female dancers and usually involves the audience.

The Leko performance that night was surely an entertainment, a pair of beautiful dancers danced with the accompaniment of rindik (an ensemble in which the instruments are made of bamboo) orchestra.

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When a grand ceremony is held, the performance of Wayang Lemah is obligatory. As its name suggest Wayang Lemah is always performed in the daylight (“wayang” means “puppet” and “lemah” means “day”) and is usually performed as long as the high priest officiates the ceremony. Wayang Lemah is an exorcistic play, it is performed primarily for invisible audiences: the spirit, divinities and the demons, it is a part of ceremony which functions to ensure the success of a ceremony and obviously not an entertainment for mortals.

The stage for Wayang Lemah is simpler than the spectacular Wayang Peteng (Night Shadow Puppet) since it does not need a screen and wick lamp and there will be no shadow. Wayang Lemah stage consists of three young, cut banana trunks for placing the puppet during the play (the pointed handle of the puppet can easily stuck into soft banana trunks), on either side of long banana trunk, which runs across and forms the actual stage, two big branches of evergreen dapdap tree had been pushed vertically through the banana trunk into the ground; at top they branched out in three directions symbolizing Hindu trinity.

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Most of Museum Bali’s collections are ethnographical objects of Bali consisting of equipments and tools of religious ceremonies, sacred dances, parts of a sacred building such as temple, etc, similar to those which are still having sacred functions in the present society. In order to appreciate the sense of their sacredness, and to observe the local norms as well, that collections in Museum Bali are generally displayed following the existing concept of Trimandala, the three divisions of an area, i.e. utama mandala, the primary or the holiest part of the area, referring to the mountain direction (kaja), madya mandala, middle area (tengah), and nista mandala, the profane area (kelod) the ocean direction. This concept in Balinese society life is applied to the palemahan desa, a village layout, as well as to the palemahan pawongan, layout of a house compound. Besides horizontally, the concept also applies vertically.

Specially for the exhibition in Denpasar Building where we exhibit collections which do not have any sacred characteristics, besides the. concept of Trimandala we also use periodisation in displaying the collections.

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