Saturday and Sunday 23/24 August 2008
Soundings Theatre and Te Marae, Te Papa Tongarewa (Museum of New Zealand), 10:30am, 1pm and 3:30pm
A presentation of two Southeast Asian puppetry traditions. A puppeteer from Thailand with beautiful translucently coloured shadow puppets, accompanied by four musicians; and our own Javanese dhalang from Dunedin, Ki Joko Susilo, accompanied by live music from Gamelan Padhang Moncar. Both groups performed three shows, each of 40 minutes.
Joko Susilo performed short versions of three stories: Sukeksi, Gatutukaca Sungging, and Gatutkaca Gugur from the Mahabharata.
The culmination of the weekend was a unique collaboration between the two groups telling the story of Rama and Sinta in English, with some Thai and Indonesian, accompanied by all the musicians.