LCIS logo

WOSAS : F359 WOSAS/CD131/track1
R375.wav

Venom of Fire Demonds, The
Wisanggeni Gugat
a Ramayana story; Hindu Mythology story

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.

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.

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.

audience:- adult
    recording quality
condition:- good
completeness:- incomplete
duration:- 1 hour, 18 minutes, 26 seconds

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.

storytelling:- storyteller; dalang: Bramantyo Prijosusilo
male / Indonesian / Javanese

storytelling:- Master of Ceremonies; Festival Co-Director: Ben Haggarty
male / British / born 30.11.1958 / occupation performance storyteller; promoter

origin:- Java, Indonesia
Hindu


thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
thumbnail, click for 
large
Festival programme

thumbnail, click  
for large
thumbnail, click  
for large
thumbnail, click  
for large
thumbnail, click  
for large
thumbnail, click  
for large
Images of the performance from behind the shadow puppet screen

thumbnail, click  
for large
thumbnail, click  
for large
Images of the main audience view of the shadow puppet screen

Click to enlarge images


programming:- Festival Co-Director: Ben Haggarty
Festival Co-Director: David Ambrose


administration:- administrator: St Donats Arts Centre


storytelling:- St Donats, Llantwit Major, South Glamorgan, Wales: St Donats Art Centre: Big Top
02 Jul 2005
festival: Beyond the Border Festival


gift from:- St Donats Arts Centre


©  The London Centre for International Storytelling: 2007
mailto button  email to The LCIS