WOSAS : F359
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WOSAS/CD131/track1
R375.wav
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Venom of Fire Demonds,
The
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Wisanggeni Gugat
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a Ramayana story; Hindu Mythology
story
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Sound recording, story; Wisanggeni Gugat, or
The Venom of the Fire Demonds, a section of myth and epic from
the Ramayana, told by Bramantyo Prijosusilo using Wayang Kulit,
Indonesian shadow puppetry, in the Big Top at the Beyond the
Border Festival, St Donats Art Centre, Llantwit Major, South
Glamorgan, Wales, 2nd July 2005.
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Introduction by Ben Haggarty to Bramantyo
Prijosusilo, whilst artists and technicians test the sound
equipment, followed by performance of Wayang Kulit (shadow
puppetry) with Bramantyo as the Dalang, the puppet master, and
musical accompaniment from a gamelan orchestra.
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Notes on wayang kulit taken from the festival
programme. Wayang Kulit is the term for buffalo hide shadow
puppets in Java and Bali. In Bali the performances of wayang
kulit are most often done as part of a larger ceremony, and
performances last around 2 to 3 hours. In Java, the Islamic holy
man Sunan Kalijaga developed wayang kulit extensively, becoming
more a teaching medium, and now in central and east Java, wayang
kulit is modern show-biz entertainment. A top dalang, or puppet
master, in Java currently (2005) can charge over ten thousand
pounds for a performance, and most weeks wayang kulit
performances can be seen on private television channels.
Modernity has not pushed aside wayang kulit. It is common now for
a gamelan orchestra to have a set of rock'n'roll drums, a brass
section or an electric guitar. A show might have a coloured light
show, or even cameo appearances from celebrity actors and
comedians popping up beside the screen to speak to the puppets.
Before the forced introduction of industrialised agriculture in
the 1970s and of genetically modified rice, the traditional rice
cycle of Java's culture and traditions required nearly every
village in Java having a family or two of professional dalang.
These dalang would perform the sacred annual harvest show as part
of the bersih desa village cleansing ceremony; these became less
and less practical as the new rhythm of rice planting, and now
this ceremony has nearly been abandoned in Java. Thus the village
dalang have been forced into extinction by the change in village
life. Since the 1970s audio-taped performances of famous dalang
became extremely popular amongst the rural population as a tape
of a good dalang sounds much better than a bad dalang, and is
much cheaper to hire. Thus in the 1970s and 1980s many peasant
puppet sets were sold off to antique dealers and nowadays finding
sets of village wayang kulit is a lot harder than ordering new
ones from the top wayang makers. The wayang kulit sets used by
Bramantyo Prijosusilo were collected by Thierry Durieux, owner of
the Indostan store in London's Charing Cross, from two village
dalang families who were not interested in continuing the art of
wayang kulit. The oldest puppets in the set would have been made
around the beginning of the 2oth century and the youngest ones
were made not long before Thierry collected them in the early
1990s.
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audience:-
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adult
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recording quality
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condition:-
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good
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completeness:-
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incomplete
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duration:-
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1 hour, 18 minutes, 26 seconds
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Beyond the Border Festival was founded in 1993 by Ben Haggarty,
Artistic Director of the Crick Crack Club, and David Ambrose, the
then Director of St Donats Arts Centre, Wales. The Festival was
founded as The Beyond the Border International Festival of
Storytelling and Epic Singing, but became known simply as Beyond
the Border. The festival ran from 1993 to 2006 co-directed by the
two founders: with Ben Haggarty programming storytellers and
David Ambrose programming musicians. Since 2007 the festival has
been directed by David Ambrose. The festival is a weekend event
running on the first weekend of July annually; attracting around
2,500 people from across Britain and from overseas. The festival
is sited at St Donats Arts Centre and in the grounds of St Donats
Castle in the Vale of Glamorgan on the South Coast of Wales.
Beyond the Border was initiated as part of the UK Year of
Literature in 1995. The successful bid submitted by Academi
Wales, prominently featured a storytelling festival. The original
Director of the UK Year of Literature was Maura Dooley, who had
been at the South Bank Centre in London when Ben Haggarty ran the
Third International Storytelling Festival there in 1989. Maura
Dooley supported the proposal brought to her by Ben Haggarty and
David Ambrose to hold an International festival and series of
summer schools at St Donats Castle and to begin Beyond the Border
in 1993 in order to build an audience and a core of Wales-based
artists for the Year of Literature in 1995. However before the
plan could be implemented Maura Dooley resigned from her post
(the position was later taken by Sean Dorran). Despite this, St
Donats Arts Centre was committed to the festival and Beyond the
Border was launched in July 1993. The 1993, 1994 and 1995
festivals were accompanied by summer schools, which produced a
number of storytellers including Megan Lloyd, Francis Maxey,
Richard Berry and Michael Harvey.
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storytelling:-
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storyteller; dalang: Bramantyo Prijosusilo
male / Indonesian / Javanese
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storytelling:-
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Master of Ceremonies; Festival Co-Director: Ben
Haggarty
male / British / born 30.11.1958 / occupation performance
storyteller; promoter
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origin:-
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Java, Indonesia
Hindu
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Festival programme
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Images of the performance from behind the shadow puppet screen
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Images of the main audience view of the shadow puppet screen
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Click to enlarge images
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programming:-
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Festival Co-Director: Ben Haggarty
Festival Co-Director: David Ambrose
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administration:-
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administrator: St Donats Arts Centre
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storytelling:-
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St Donats, Llantwit Major, South Glamorgan, Wales: St Donats Art
Centre: Big Top
02 Jul 2005
festival: Beyond the Border Festival
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gift from:-
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St Donats Arts Centre
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© The London Centre for International Storytelling:
2007