Dalang in training

The first destination of this tour was the small, sultanate of Brunei, on the island of Borneo. I arrived Sunday evening, July 27, and the following morning was driven to the U.S. Embassy office (a small upstairs space in an unassuming downtown building). After meeting Ms. Shova Thapa, Education/Cultural Affairs Assistant (my main contact for Brunei), and a courtesy call on Deputy Chief of Mission, John McIntyre, a performance in a primary level public school (Sekolah Rendah Rimba II ) was the first job.

Brunei workshop

The school, with all open air hallways, allowed by the temperate climate, appeared to be very well organized and disciplined. Approximately 300 children, ages 4 or 5 to 11 attended the performance in a large hall. I brought a show featuring tabletop as well as shadow puppets, which also included audience participation in verbal response as well as a small sound effects team. The show featured three folk tales on a peaceful conflict resolution theme - one from the Marshall Islands, one from the U.S. Appalachian Mountains, and one from China. The children were very enthusiastic and their English was more than adequate to comprehend, enjoy, and respond to the show. After the performance, the gracious principal proudly gave me a tour of the school, showing off each grade level's wing of open windowed classrooms of co-ed classes. The girls wore modest hijabs, except when participating in their phys. ed. class, when they wore typical gym uniforms. The school tour also included a delicious sampling of traditional foods. I was to find that all gatherings ended in a snack or light meal together.

The three teacher workshops, one that afternoon and two the following day, were in a facility for teacher education, IPA. Each group of approximately 40-45 teachers had come from a different area of the country, some, I was told, traveling by boat from very small villages to be there. In chatting with the teachers, I learned that their circumstances were very varied. Some were English teachers in large schools, and some in very remote areas. One told me she had only 15 students and spoke of the difficulty in getting them to learn and practice English because they had never heard anyone but her use it. The teachers were extremely friendly, and when they began their collaborative work, very animated, all presenting their shadow puppet performances with enthusiasm. Their English abilities varied, some excellent, and some less. When working in their groups, some communicated mainly in their own language(s), many switched back and forth from that to English. The stunning and graceful traditional dress of these women made for the most colorful classes I have ever worked with.

Technique lesson

This oil rich country appeared to have good roads with many cars (right hand drive) and clean public areas. It is a Muslim country featuring impressive mosques, with the beautiful call to prayer heard regularly. It is also, of course, a dry country (no alcohol available) with strong, sweet tea the beverage of choice. Also, I found, it has excellent health care. I was almost over a cold just before the trip, but it got worse on the flight, with a fever and cough. Hotel personnel referred me to a small clinic across the street. After my second work day, the clinic did open exactly at 7:00p.m., as the sign on the door announced. Within 20 minutes, I had seen an English speaking (female) doctor and received prescription antibiotic, fever reducer, decongestant, and cough syrup - all for U.S. $20 - better than any care I had ever received at home, and I steadily recovered.

My last evening, I was invited to a dinner with several wonderful educators. The conversation was interesting, including discussion of the cultural pride of these strong, very well educated, independent, Muslim women. The morning before my flight to leave, Shova and her mother kindly took me on a whirlwind sightseeing tour, including a trip in a small water taxi to see the "water village" across a river from the main downtown area: a community with their own schools, shops, etc., built over the river on stilts.

I very much appreciate the work of Ms Shova Thapa in her organization and warm hospitality for this highly rewarding experience in communication and sharing among educators. I would welcome the opportunity to work again with the enthusiastic teachers of Brunei.

Wawan, Karen, puppets

The next destination was the Asia TEFL 2008 conference in Bali, where I was to present a plenary address as well as a short workshop. Due to a national holiday in Brunei when I would not be able to present, I had a free day in my schedule, so I could arrive a day early in Bali, and have one day for sightseeing. I was advised to hire a driver, which I did. I immensely enjoyed the Barong Dance (a traditional Balinese dance, theater, and gamelan music performance), as well as visits to a couple ancient Buddhist temples, and the obligatory silver and batik factories.

The conference was intensive and fascinating, with participants from all over Asia. I attended several of the workshops and plenary addresses, many on specific techniques in the teaching of English, as well as some absorbing philosophical discussions on the positive and negative effects of the concept of English as a global language. My plenary address, entitled "Bringing Language to Life / Giving Life to Language: Puppetry as a Teaching Tool", was enthusiastically received by an audience of around 200 and many people spoke to me afterwards with interest and positive comments. I was glad I had chosen to use the "low tech" overhead projector, to actually use shadow puppetry in the presentation, allowing the audience to see as well as hear about the actual process. This gave the presentation a unique visual element and featured a modern adaptation of the ancient Indonesian wayang kulit (leather shadow puppets). I was graciously presented a wayang tlitik puppet by conference director, Dr. Suwarsih Madya.

The workshop the following day was well attended (around 40), with some people who had wanted to know more than I was able to share in the plenary address, about this process. The use of puppetry in education was a new concept for most educators I met.

Dalangs

Upon leaving Bali, I flew directly to Yogyakarta on Java. Although my schedule showed that I would present a performance that afternoon to families, when I arrived at the venue (STBA Lia), I was informed that only teachers would be in attendance, and they would prefer the workshop, so that is what I did. It was enthusiastically received, and they even presented me with a wayang kulit of my now favorite traditional character from the Mahabarata, Semar, the wise, comical, and rotund teacher and father of three sons.

A dinner followed with Dr. Dwijatmoko, from Sanata Dharma University, where I would present a workshop for teachers the next morning. These graduate level teachers were also interested and motivated, and I made some friends among the students with whom I am still in touch, and who accompanied me to some events when I returned to Yogyakarta on my own, to learn more about the cultural heritage there.

Next stop was Jakarta. The first day there, I presented a workshop for about 50 animated teachers through the LEAP program, hosted also by the Indonesia-U.S. Friendship Organization. There, I also was introduced to two dalangs (puppeteers) the internationally touring Wawan Gunawan as well as the highly respected Gaura Mancacaritadipura with whom it had been arranged for me to present a collaborative performance the next evening. Wawan surprised me with a gift of three wayang golek (carved wood) puppets which he had made from a photo on my website - one puppet of me, and two of the puppets I am holding in the photo. We discussed a collaboration in which Wawan would present a segment, then I would, then the three of us would create an improvised segment together.

I would like to say that Kun Herrini, RELO Assistant to Michael Rudder, did an outstanding job of organization for my tour, clearly determined to make the most of the cultural sharing possibilities because of the history of my art form in this rich culture. Her enthusiasm and involvement led to very inspiring arts and education collaborative possibilities that we plan to develop in the future, leading to further cultural sharing and international communication.

Later that afternoon I met with Gaura and Karen Smith (an Australian native who has lived many places in the world, now in California, and is now the president of UNIMA-USA - the U.S. branch of the international organization of puppeteers - a UNESCO affiliate for world peace). I was invited to accompany Karen that evening to a dalang school where Gaura had studied for eight years. This was a truly amazing experience - to have the opportunity to see live the informal training process of a hundreds, or thousand, year old tradition in puppetry. The school was run by a young woman who was carrying on her deceased father's work. The gamelan orchestra (I was told the musicians lived upstairs in the garage-like building) played constantly as three different dalangs-in-training (two men and one 15 year old boy) sat bare-foot and cross-legged before the screen, to practice their powerful singing, animated and varied voices, puppet manipulation, and direction and accompaniment of the gamelan orchestra with the cempolo wood "knocker" picked up as needed in the left hand and struck on the large wood box used to carry the puppets, and clattery, metal kapyak, played by the dalang's right toes.

The next day was the public, collaborative performance. at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism A larger audience was expected, however, several people expressed belief that with better publicity, much more interest in such a collaboration could be achieved in the future. The approximately 100 people there enjoyed it, and it was an inspiring experience for me to work with Wawan and Gaura., and we began then to discuss future collaborative work.

The following day, accompanied by Kun Herrini, was a live bilingual television interview together with Wawan Gunawan on the topic: Fostering Friendship through Culture at the local O Channel, which went well. The embassy may have been able to obtain a copy.

Following the interview was the final teacher workshop for about 25 at the RELO office, for a select group of English teachers.

The final official day of the tour involved a visit to the Jakarta Art Institute for a performance for the incoming university arts students. This was an interesting collaboration, featuring my performance, with a student painter also on stage, creating an impromptu painting as I performed. This was followed by an excellent student percussionist performance. The students hoped to create a collaborative work with me, but there simply was not time. I think it is wonderful that so much collaborative thinking is going on there. I would have loved this opportunity, and was staying another week in Indonesia, but I had already made flight reservations to return to Yogyakarta, to absorb more culture there.

The four days/five nights in Yogyakarta included attending a night wayang kulit performance with two of my student friends, some general exploring and batik shopping, a visit to the deserted, but comprehensive Wayang Museum, an evening treating three students to the Ramayana Ballet at Prambanan (spectacular!), an early morning trip to ancient and impressive Hindu and Buddhist temples Borobudur and Prambanan, a train day trip to Solo, where Gaura had put me in touch with the head of the puppetry department at the arts university there, and I was invited to watch some young dalangs being tested, all involving several becak rides (bicycle powered taxis).

When I returned to Jakarta, activities included opportunity to see Gaura Mancacaritadipura, as well as a traditional anklung music group perform for a live concert for television broadcast, and also a day visit to the workshop of Wawan Gunawan to perform for a visiting kindergarten class.

Since this trip, I have already written up the following project description and am in the process of creating support material for its promotion. I highly appreciate this opportunity provided by the U.S. Embassy programming, and look forward to the next chance for cultural sharing in education and the arts.

Through the TravelLinks Project, Calliope Puppets would like to share their world travels in residencies designed to connect students with geography, culture, and folklore of specific countries in active learning formats through puppetry. As puppeteer/educator Karen Konnerth has been invited to perform in various festivals (in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Pakistan, Spain, and Peru) or to present teacher workshops on the use of puppetry as an educational tool (in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Brunei, and Indonesia), she makes a point to return with material such as maps, crafts, folk tales, and information on culture, history, and traditions.

As global communication compacts our world, Calliope Puppets aims to facilitate global knowledge and understanding, leading students to bring elements of a culture to life for themselves through puppetry. Students will create a large map of the country, for simple puppet residents to explore how geographic features and natural resources relate to human settlements, recorded on a basic timeline. And the development of indigenous folktales for performance will highlight the significance of the historical footprint left by a culture's arts. Engage students in memorable learning through this dynamic format!

Timeframe: minimum 10 classroom hours, preferably in 2 hour blocks
Grades: 1 - 6
New 2008 - 2009: "Indonesia, A Cradle of Puppetry"