Puppets and Cities: Articulating Identities in Southeast Asia 9781350044418, 9781350044449, 9781350044432

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Note on the Text
Chapter One Cities, Puppets, and Identity
Chapter Two Museums: Sites of Display and Identity
Chapter Three Spaces of Healing: Sbeik Thom in New York City
Chapter Four Negotiating the Past and Present through Spectacle
Chapter Five Considering Nature in Relation to Urban Identities
Chapter Six Inventing Middle-Class Tradition in Thailand
Chapter Seven Puppetry and Identity in Virtual Worlds
Chapter Eight Conclusion—Puppet Exchanges and Regional Identity in George Town
Glossary
Notes
Reference
Index

Citation preview

Puppets and Cities

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Puppets and Cities Articulating Identities in Southeast Asia JENNIFER GOODLANDER

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METHUEN DRAMA Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, METHUEN DRAMA and the Methuen Drama logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Copyright © Jennifer Goodlander, 2019 Jennifer Goodlander has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on pp. x–xi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Adriana Brioso Cover image: Tingmong yak in Siem Reap, Cambodia. (© John W Banagan/Getty Images) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-350-04441-8 ePDF: 978-1-350-04443-2 eBook: 978-1-350-04442-5 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Dedicated to my wife, Tina Goodlander “Thanks for sharing the adventure!”

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CONTENTS

List of Figures  viii Acknowledgments  x Note on the Text  xii

Cities, Puppets, and Identity  1 1 2 Museums: Sites of Display and Identity  15 3 Spaces of Healing: Sbeik Thom in New York City  43 4 Negotiating the Past and Present through Spectacle  59 5 Considering Nature in Relation to Urban Identities  89 6 Inventing Middle-Class Tradition in Thailand  113 7 Puppetry and Identity in Virtual Worlds  141 8 Conclusion—Puppet Exchanges and Regional Identity in George Town  171 Glossary  183 Notes  184 References  191 Index  205

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FIGURES

1.1 “Manop the Puppet” at Asiatique on the Riverfront, Bangkok, Thailand  2 2.1 Wayang golek puppets on display in the Museum Nasional Indonesia  27 2.2 Exhibit of Javanese wayang kulit at the Museum Nasional Indonesia  29 2.3 Exhibit of children’s wayang at the Museum Nasional Indonesia  32 2.4 A crowd celebrates Independence Day outside the Museum Wayang  35 2.5 Wayang Revolusi at the Museum Wayang  37 3.1 The audience watches the performance of Sor Neakabas at Brookfield Place  46 3.2 Sbeik thom are large puppets held aloft by a dancer  47 3.3 Two dancers perform the battle between Laksmana and Virulamuk  52 3.4 From the exhibit of photographs at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts  53 4.1 Angkor Wat in Cambodia  61 4.2 A classroom converted into a prison cell at Tuol Sleng  62 4.3 A Cambodian flag is wrapped around a figure dressed as an apsara, at a performance at Zaman University  64 4.4 The lion puppet under construction  71 4.5 The lion puppet parades down the street  76 5.1 The puppets from VYDA, Laos PDR, in a scene about pollution in the city  92 5.2 I Made Sidia performs at the Kotabaru, Bandung  100 5.3 The intersection in Hoan Kiem, or Old Quarter, in Hanoi  106 5.4 Fishing on the river is a popular scene in a Vietnamese water puppet play  108

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5.5 The indoor water stage at the National Puppet Theatre in Hanoi  112 6.1 Puppeteers from Joe Louis in Thailand demonstrate how to manipulate the puppets  116 7.1 Actress Michelle Yeoh sits alongside a wayang kulit figure in the TV show Star Trek Discovery  142 7.2 An example of Htwe Oo’s Facebook page  160 7.3 An image from Fusion Wayang  169 8.1 The United Buddy Bears in George Town, Penang, Malaysia  172 8.2 A scene from the APEX Live performance in Penang  178

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing a book takes the time, energy, and financial assistance of many individuals and organizations. Without these resources and inspiration, this project would have been impossible. The idea for this project came inadvertently from a friend, Bruce Douglas, who had been a fellow student at Ohio University. As I sat in my new office at the University of Kentucky trying to dream up my next big adventure now that I had my PhD and a job, I came across photos he had shared on Facebook about his new life in Cambodia. The culture, places, and food looked so interesting! I wondered how I might work out a way to travel there. The answer came from reading Beth Osnes’s lovely book on shadow puppetry in Malaysia. In it, she had a chapter that attempted to draw historical and aesthetic connections between puppet practices throughout the region. This planted the seed for thinking about a more in-depth study approaching this important topic—I began writing grants. First, I focused on Indonesia and Cambodia in order to combine my previous experience with my new-found interest. It was a couple of years before I  finally was able to go to Cambodia; in the meantime, I  moved universities and focused my energy on completing my first book. I am grateful for funding from the Mellon Innovating International Research and Teaching Fellowship I  received from my new employer, Indiana University, and to the Centre for Khmer Studies, who hosted me for a language and culture program in Phnom Penh. That summer, while abroad, I  heard about a partnership that Indiana University had with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, where I  went for a month on a faculty exchange. It is while in Bangkok that I  began to seriously pay attention to how urban spaces functioned together with performance in innovative ways as part of the meaning-making and community-building processes of these events. The idea of traveling around Southeast Asia to learn

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something more about puppetry finally began to find cohesion as a book project. Connections on Facebook, a great deal of luck, a semester of faculty leave, and a number of other grants made visits to other parts of the region to see puppet performances possible. I  am grateful to funding from the American Society for Theatre Research, The Martha and H. A. R. Tilaar Faculty Support Fund for the Study of Global Issues of Women’s Empowerment and Education in the AsiaPacific Region, a College Arts and Humanities Institute Fellowship, a summer stipend from the Indiana University Vice Provost for Research, and a New Frontiers Experimentation Fellowship. I am also indebted to my lovely colleagues at the Department for Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance at Indiana University for cheering me on and allowing me flexibility to leave for a week or two during the semester to watch a puppetry performance on the other side of the world. Another institute on campus, The Mathers Museum of World Cultures has allowed me to work with their puppet collections and try out some ideas in exhibits. I am blessed to have studied the arts in such a remarkable part of the world, and to the many artists who shared their ideas, thoughts, and practice with me. Thank you for your generosity and patience. It is not possible to mention all the artists, but I especially want to thank Terence Tan, the artistic director for Artsolute in Singapore and the mastermind behind bringing puppeteers from around the region together to share arts and culture. A book, like theatre, needs an audience and I  appreciate the support and encouragement I received from Methuen Drama. I am excited to be part of their commitment to highlight scholarship about global theatre and performance. I  am grateful for the opportunity to share my ideas on these amazing art forms and places. I  look forward to continuing to explore the issues and countries mentioned in this book.

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NOTE ON THE TEXT

Chapter Three, “Spaces of Healing: Sbeik Thom in New York City,” was published in Theatre Research International 41(1):  40–52 under the title “Sbeik Thom at the Season of Cambodia Festival: Performing Memory after the Killing Fields in a Post 9/11 New York City.”

CHAPTER ONE

Cities, Puppets, and Identity Within the walls of Asiatique on the Riverfront, an evening shopping and entertainment destination for tourists and locals in Bangkok, sits an unassuming Thai man who bills himself as “Manop the Puppet” (Figure 1.1). He sits on a short stool and holds a puppet on his lap. There are several other puppets lying on the ground. Off to a side there is a sign that declares he is “the best street performer in Thailand.” Manop the Puppet sits with a small grayish-blue muppet-style robot on his lap, who wiggles his electronic eyebrows as he sings. A small crowd, taking a break from shopping or eating, gathers around to watch. The street is really a pedestrian walk lined with shops, bars, and restaurants creating an upscale night market. The puppet’s recorded songs switch from Thai to English, or Japanese, as appropriate to the audience gathering around; the man’s own voice is not heard. People laugh and applaud, children dance, couples pose for photos, and sometimes people deposit money in a small tip jar sitting on the ground in front of Manop. This simple performance articulates complex local and global Southeast Asian identities as expressed through relationships between city spaces and puppet performances. The Asiatique on the Riverfront opened in 2012 on the shore of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok’s Bang Kho Laem district. The location and style of Asiatique strives to recall past glories mixed with global aspirations. The complex, which includes over 1,500 shops and more than forty international restaurants, sits at the prior location of the East Asiatic Company—a pier constructed by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) at the beginning of the twentieth

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FIGURE  1.1   “Manop the Puppet” at Asiatique on the Riverfront, Bangkok, Thailand. Photo by the author.

century in order to fend off possible colonization by European countries and to raise the status of Thailand. According to the district’s website, the “pier signaled the beginning of international trade between the Kingdom of Siam (the former name of Thailand) and European nations and was the key to Siam maintaining the sovereignty and independence it enjoys to this day” (Asiatique website). The shops and restaurants sell a mix of Thai “traditional” goods, such as textiles, spices, and small dolls dressed in traditional clothes, together with many international brands and foods. Manop the Puppet reflects the different values expressed through the spaces of Asiatique. On one hand his performance harkens to the past—it is a simple street performance with several puppets and props. On the other hand, his performance relies on technology for light, amplification, and sound. His main puppet is a large blueand-silver robot with “R-2” emblazoned across its chest, wearing blue jean shorts. The puppet manipulation uses both strings and robotics to delight the audience with songs, jokes, and dance. The

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puppet’s features and clothing do not suggest a particular Asian or Thai identity, but through song he moves freely between cultures and languages. The Lionel Richie ballad “Say You, Say Me” drew audiences from many different nationalities, who laughed and cheered. Asiatique is a modern reconstruction of a glorious Thai past; a crossroads of culture located on a former location of trade and commerce. The puppet performance is the “best” in Thailand, but little or nothing of his performance identifies it as “Thai.” The man operating the puppet is Asian, but he wears black jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt. The man and his puppet would be just as likely to be seen in New York, London, or Berlin, as in Bangkok. The performance and its place demonstrate how the complexity of identity is articulated through interactions of puppet, bodies, place, and audience. The space intentionally invokes tradition but the modern bodies of the performer and audience suggest an intermingling of local and global. The puppet serves as a signifier of all these things—he looks like a modern robot but uses both traditional strings and electronics for animation. This book addresses how puppetry complements and combines with urban spaces to articulate present and future individual, cultural, and national identities. I  provide crucial insight into the dialectical relationships between traditional and contemporary performing arts as creative social agents within systems of economics, politics, and community formation in Southeast Asian cities. I am interested in not only “how places of performance generate social and cultural meanings of their own which in turn help structure the meaning of the entire theatre experience” (Carlson 1989:  2), but also in how city spaces work with performances to do the work of theatre, which, in turn, reflects and informs social interactions and community. As Jill Dolan writes, “live performance provides a place where people come together, embodied and passionate, to share experiences of meaning making and imagination that can describe or capture fleeting intimations of a better world” (2005: 2). I believe that most of the intersections of space, people, and performance described in this book are part of larger projects and feelings in Southeast Asia to work toward improvement. Tradition, modernity, globalization, and a celebration of the local are all enacted in order to better negotiate the past and look with hope toward the future of the region.1

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Theatre scholar Claudia Orenstein declares “We are living in a puppet moment,” because the current global society “habituates us to see things as a means of satisfying our desires, expressing our personalities, and somehow completing us—things as an essential extension of ourselves (Posner, Orenstein, and Bell 2014:  2). In Southeast Asia puppetry is one of the oldest performance genres and is linked to religion, politics, and popular entertainment. UNESCO has designated traditional puppetry in several Southeast Asian nations to be “Intangible Cultural Heritages,” adding to its economic and political relevance, but complicating issues of ownership, preservation versus innovation, and transmission. Contemporary or new forms of puppetry are used in development projects and are often combined with traditional dance and theatre to create new hybrid performances. Puppets as material objects require a revised understanding of performance and materiality within different social structures. Puppets parade in street fairs, tour in international festivals, and enact religious rituals; they are talked about and presented in social media, and are also displayed in museums and commoditized as tourist objects. Puppets perform and circulate as things that articulate identities locally and globally. Nations in Southeast Asia have gone through a period of rapid change within the last century as they have grappled with independence, modernization, and changing political landscapes. Governments, alongside citizens, strive to balance progress with the need to articulate identities that resonate with the precolonial past and look toward the future. The regional focus and effort to put contemporary and traditional performance practices into meaningful dialogue makes this study unique. Most research on Southeast Asian arts and cultures focuses on a single country, even though there are clear connections between the artistic forms that can be traced through their iconography, social uses, stories, and histories. Theatre scholar Glenn Odom offers that there is a direct link between society’s perceptions of identity and theories of acting and approaches to theatre (2017:  155). The puppet is not only a type of actor, but also an aesthetic object manipulated in performance by a human, or mechanical, actor, but the puppet in performance or on display likewise offers insight into identity. I examine various puppet performances to interrogate how various nodes of tradition, community, technology, urbanity, globalization,

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and modernity interact, clash, and consolidate to create and reify identities in Southeast Asia.

The city as performance space Cities, recognized as key nodes in networks of local, regional, and global identity, are central to this project; by 2020 the majority of Asian citizens will live in urban areas. Bangkok, Jakarta, Bandung, Kuala Lumpur, Yangon, Phnom Penh, and others serve as large-scale testing grounds for the reinvention of tradition and the questioning of cultural and national identities. Discourses regarding traditional performance often situate art within the villages, or disregard space as an important part of the meaning-making process of the performance. Likewise, traditional and contemporary performances are often segregated and the interrelationships between artists and audiences are frequently overlooked. Cities as sites for global flows, economic growth, and cultural communities have been repeatedly cited as crucial for Southeast Asian development; the performing arts offer hubs for expressing and enacting these goals. The city in Southeast Asia functions as the cultural, political, and economic center for a growing middle class occupied with formulating local and global identities. Social media connects these two spheres as artists promote their work and communicate across borders; besides, it allows public interaction with fans. These various elements compel a rethinking of performance in relation to identity in Southeast Asian cities as productive agents of public/private spaces, economic reform and development, heritage, and transnational networks. Cities in Southeast Asia are both part of complex international urban trends and unique entities onto themselves. T. G. McGee traces the development of cities in Southeast Asia as originating as hubs of spiritual practices, such as Angkor Thom, or as centers of trade like Malacca. As contact with the West developed from the sixteenth century on, cities became more important as communication and trade network foci. Most key cities had access to the sea, housed important foreign institutions such as banks, and linked Southeast Asia to European economic systems. The relationship between Southeast Asia and the West through these cities intensified at the beginning of the twentieth century when most of the region was under colonial rule. Throughout their history, these cities have been

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both places of primary contact with outsiders, but also places where dynamic cultures and identities have developed. The city in Southeast Asia is quite different in character and function from other cities around the globe. Cities in Western Europe and the United States grew in part as a result of industrialization— larger populations of people were needed to manufacture goods. In Southeast Asia, the dependence on foreign trade and governance resulted in jobs being primarily within the tertiary sector—retail, administration, and so on. McGee asserts that this focus on growth within the tertiary sector resulted in an “unhealthy” trend. The lack of industry meant that even though many people were migrating to the cities in hopes of finding opportunity, there was a lack of jobs. “The proliferation of petty traders, pedicab drivers, footpath astrologers, trinket vendors, and food sellers in the colonial city was not a reflection of a growing demand, but simply the result of employment opportunities not growing at a rate fast enough to absorb city population” (McGee 1967: 58). Population growth consisted of people moving from rural areas, natural growth, and migration from other parts of Asia and the world. In some cities there are many foreigners residing or visiting, which influences the character of the city and how it articulates identity. Various cities have large populations of ethnic Indians or Chinese who, even though they have been there sometimes for generations, often retain many aspects of their own heritage and identity. Artists working in urban spaces must think about how to address these diverse audiences. Cities in Southeast Asia must overcome many challenges. Poverty and transportation are two of the most immediate. Recent figures, published by Southeast Asia Globe, demonstrate that large percentages of the population in the region’s cities reside in slums. In 2014, slum population ranged from 20 to 60 percent of the total urban population. This is while the urban population in relation to the total population has risen to be about 30–60  percent of the total population in 2014, with projected growth in the cities to be around 70 percent of the total population in most countries by 2050. The urban geography of most of these cities consists of overcrowded shanty towns pushed up against tall skyscrapers. This dynamic worsens when coupled with problems of clean water, sanitation, flooding, and social problems of crime, prostitution, poor education, and illegal and unsafe housing. In 2015 I  visited

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some of the slums of Jakarta, and the residents in one shanty town complained that their situation was even more precarious because the Indonesian government would sometimes, and without warning, bulldoze settlements to make way for new construction. In spite of these challenges, cities are thriving and middle- and upperclass populations are growing. Cities remain the center of politics, culture, education, and opportunity for the people of Southeast Asia. Tradition, modernity, local, and global all mix to make these cities vibrant places that reflect the complex identities of Southeast Asians. Puppet performances and displays often address both the problems and triumphs of the city through a combination of heritage and development as part of larger urban planning initiatives throughout the region. Puppetry offers a place to expose the different layers of identity inherent within the cities—“Cultural layering is a common attribute of most Asian cities. All these different layers are significant, since they reveal stories about stages in spatial production and societies” (Martokusumo 2011: 182). This book uncovers those layers through examining the interactions between puppets, people, and urban spaces. Place, especially place in a city, becomes part of one’s identity—“The sense of one’s historical position and place in time is based on historical places, whether they are in the form of individual buildings, entire cities, or the countries in which they are located” (Martokusumo 2011: 182). Space offers people a means to engage with their sense of history and how the past and future relate. “Performance can help renegotiate the urban archive, to build the city, and to change it” (Hopkins, Orr, and Solga 2009: 6). The definition of city around Southeast Asia varies—by global standards only Manila in the Philippines is considered a mega-city by the UN—but others argue that official numbers are difficult to come by in the region and that Bangkok, Jakarta, and Ho Chi Minh City ought to be considered mega-cities (Sheng 2013: 147). In this book the size of the cities covered varies greatly, because some countries like Brunei have very small populations while other cities like Luang Prabang, Laos PDR and Siem Reap, Cambodia, are smallish in size, but remain important economic and heritage centers. Throughout this book I  argue that the city in Southeast Asia presents a particular set of cultural values, institutions, and ways of being. Cities are where Southeast Asia is most global— that is, people, ideas, and economies intersect in various ways with

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“outside” worlds. It is also the space where Southeast Asia strives to best articulate its identity to the world and to its own people. For me the city is not just a place but an object like the puppet. It lives and moves, but never totally on its own. The city and puppet both depend on human animation, but they are a particular kind of object that dictates and controls its movements. Cities and puppets interact with humans to generate meanings and to negotiate identities. Performance studies scholars often examine “how cities are produced and performed” (Martin 2014: 10). I do not interrogate the city as a performed entity, but rather consider puppets, cities, and people together within the production of Southeast Asian identities.

Puppetry, heritage, and identity Identity is an important concept for understanding Southeast Asia in the current moment. It is linked to economics, nationhood, security, culture—it is the formation of a dynamic and multifaceted “imagined community” that reaches from specific spaces and peoples to cities, nations, regions, the world, and into virtual spaces. Identity belongs both to individuals and to society. It incorporates religion, ethnicity, class, education, gender, and age. Identity is not “just there, it must always be established.” It is an active process within interactions and institutions—it is not something that just “is”—we make our identity; identities are made as ongoing and are never complete (Jenkins 1996: 4). For this book I look at identity in Southeast Asia as a product of both tradition and modernity; I will draw from and complicate different social and political conceptions of identity. Key notions relating to Southeast Asian identities are diversity, heritage, and nationalism. Numerous books, websites, and even the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) describe ethnic diversity as a defining feature. Beyond national identities there are hundreds of distinct ethnic groups with individual languages and customs that often extend beyond national boundaries. There are also significant populations of ethnic Chinese and Tamil (from India) people in Southeast Asia who have migrated throughout its history. Additionally, Southeast Asia has many different religions, environments, and geographies. Southeast Asia has enjoyed

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multiple arrangements of exchange with countries from all over the world and experienced its own shifting borders. “Scholars have characterized such territorial arrangements as akin to the concept of a mandala, a Sanskrit term, which used in this way symbolizes the waxing and waning of territories and group allegiances in the absence of firm boundaries” (Shaw 2009: 2). During the twentieth century most countries in Southeast Asia, except for Thailand, were colonized by European countries and the United States, which has added traces of Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and American languages and cultures to the mix. Today, China, Japan, and Korea influence the region’s politics, fashion, and popular culture. The Middle East is becoming more important to expressions of Muslim identity in the region through the sponsorship of religious schools, the spread of Arabic, and more Southeast Asians going on Hajj and wearing headscarves. Within this great mosaic of diversity, countries are using tradition and heritage to express national identities both at home and abroad. Ideas of tradition and heritage are inextricably linked to Southeast Asian performance forms and cultures. Traditional performances are set aside as a genre, and revered as having special status within society and identity. Theatre scholar Catherine Diamond defines traditional theatre in Southeast Asia as “the theatre considered authentic to the peoples of Southeast Asia before European invention” (2012:  2). Diamond provides a useful benchmark to set certain types of performance as distinct or original, but this also obscures the globality of Southeast Asian theatre and culture throughout its history. Even after European intervention, unique and original theatre forms were created from a hybrid of influences. In order to remain relevant, tradition constantly changes. Tradition, however, has recently had more tangible use-value for creating and articulating identities. Southeast Asian governments and people point to certain parts of culture and society as traditional because it helps them articulate who they are as a community. The importance of these expressions of identity can be seen when there are disputes. For example, conflicts and controversy regarding ownership of several traditional dance forms have resulted in riots in Indonesia and Malaysia.2 Most Southeast Asian countries gained independence halfway through the twentieth century. Ideas of nationalism and national identity are therefore key in Southeast Asia overall. Shaw describes

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that “unifying characteristics of culture, values, and aspirations” might have seemed impossible (2009: 8). These countries are still a work in progress, establishing symbols of the nation that will carry them into the twenty-first century. Globalization has influenced the stakes and methods of this process. Many people in Southeast Asia now speak English, and it has emerged as a leading regional language, including becoming the official business language for ASEAN. Throughout this book I view identity as a negotiation within Preston’s interrelated trinity—he argues that identity is “a matter of locale (the place where people live), network (the ways in which people interact), and memory (the understandings which are sustained and re-created over time” (Preston 1997: 167). The city provides a distinct kind of setting that is local, but directly impacted by various global forces. Not all of the cities in my study are extremely large, but they are urban in their form and function. The arts offer a specific kind of network, fostering a conversation between artists and audience and within the audience. Art is public, to some extent, and offers the opportunity to articulate distinct identities through performance. Each puppet form has some relationship to tradition, or memory. It often represents heritage, and these objects and performances contain the potential through their negotiation of traditional elements and discourses to offer a unique lens for studying Southeast Asian identities. I  examine puppets in different contexts and forms—some are on display—or in performance, or rendered a digital object through social media. At its most ideal, “Theatre is not merely a mirror held up to reality; it is an active site of emergence in which knowledge might be reconfigured, previously fixed identities reimagined and cultural hallmarks transformed” (McIvor and Spangler 2014: 10). Southeast Asians celebrate their diverse and complex heritages while seeking approaches to develop and articulate national, cultural, and regional identities that relate to the larger global world. Scholars such as Brian Shaw recognize that Benedict Anderson’s framework of an imagined community based on a strong central government or structure might no longer account for the multiplicities of influences that contribute to contemporary identities in the region (2009: 12). These diversities and similarities throughout the region are why it is useful and productive to consider Southeast Asian

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identities in conversation together. The authors of a book on AsianPacific theatre employ the term “liquid modernity” to capture the diverse global and local forces acting within transnational spaces that might best capture contemporary notions of culture (Varney et al. 2013: 3). I argue that using different approaches for different cities and performances offers a language and method that could be applied more broadly to understand the “liquid identities” of Southeast Asia.

Chapter overview Each chapter is organized around a theme or idea rather than a specific city or country. Through this approach, I want to establish different ways that puppetry combines with city environments to create multiple ideas of identity. Even so, many chapters focus primarily on one or two locations in an attempt to clarify complicated performance practices, histories, and cultures. Based on my own personal research experiences and interests, the book favors puppetry from Indonesia, Cambodia, and Thailand, offering smaller sections on other cities and performance practices in Southeast Asia. I do not intend to write a book that is a comprehensive survey of the many practices and cultures in Southeast Asia—such an effort is outside the scope and purpose of this book. Instead, I strive to offer a glimpse into the fascinating performances and cultures I have been fortunate to experience in my research. My approach is ethnographic, that is, I write from my own involvement observing, talking to, interacting with, and studying people and their lives. I often favor perception over, or at least equal to, fact as a means to comprehend how art, spaces, and culture are active agents in the formation of social lives. I embrace the advantages and limits of such qualitative research, always seeking to guide my reader as an active participant in the meaning-making process inherent to a study of arts and culture. After this introduction, Chapter Two looks at puppetry outside the context of performance and in the reified space of the museum. Inclusion in the museum constructs identity as static in exhibits of puppets that are constructed to convey particular national values. In this chapter I  focus on two museums in Indonesia to explore how the puppets on display works with the location of the museum

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in order to determine national ideals of Indonesian citizenry. Colonialism and various periods in Indonesian history clash, and today youth are reclaiming these spaces and arts in order to offer a new global Indonesian identity. The next chapter expands on how international spaces transform meaning in performance. I analyze how a performance of Cambodian puppetry in New York City creates an identity narrative of healing. The performance took place at the reconstructed location of the Twin Towers. The dual specters of 9/11 and the genocide of the Khmer Rouge intermingle as the artists perform an art form that was almost lost in the horrors of war. From the spectacle of horror, in Chapter Four I examine puppet spectacle in Cambodia by looking at the yearly Giant Puppet Project in Siem Reap, Cambodia. In the shadow of Angkor Wat, this parade of giant puppets is made by local children and marched down the streets of the city. The puppets and the project illustrate how Cambodia manages a desire for a strong Khmer identity within an overwhelming structure of foreign aid and influence. Chapter Five interrogates how the ideas of nature and the village are vital to expressions of identity in Southeast Asia—even urban identities. Different examples from Laos PDR, Indonesia, and Vietnam demonstrate that the environment is romanticized within the Southeast Asian imagination. Thailand also struggles to maintain a strong connection to the past in a society that is becoming more middle class and globalized. The notion of Thai-ness, which reflects the importance of king, religion, and nation, is expressed in city spaces and changing traditions of puppetry. A  search for space reflects relations to different structures of power whether they be the king, middleclass values, or nostalgia. Chapter Six examines the history and performance practices of three puppet companies in Bangkok. Southeast Asians are among the fastest growing users of social media, especially Facebook. Considering the virtual world as a kind of urban space, I am able to interrogate discourses of dying traditions in relation to heritage, performance, and identity in new ways. The first section looks at how Sovanna Phum revitalizes traditional performance in Cambodia. Social media was able to save this company when they ran out of money and energy. Next, I look at the puppet practices and social media use of a marionette company in post-Junta Myanmar. Htw-Oo Myanmar uses Facebook

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like a guidebook and creates a particular kind of experience for his audience. Finally, I look at how Star Wars and other popular figures have alleviated tensions between religion and traditional culture in Malaysia. The book’s conclusion focuses on puppet companies from around the region coming together to create a performance in George Town, Penang, Malaysia. This diverse city offers an excellent backdrop for understanding how different artists use puppetry to construct a performance about the role of puppetry in Southeast Asian identity.

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CHAPTER TWO

Museums: Sites of Display and Identity National museums are exemplary sites through which nations tell their story and represent themselves to their citizens and others. (Thompson 2012: 54) At the Thai National Museum, I first encountered an exhibit on the history of Thailand before I could enter other parts of the museum. At the entrance to the building housing this exhibit there was a wallsized mirror with the question “Who is Thai?” engraved in both English and Thai languages. Underneath the question was etched a large question mark. As a visitor read this question, his or her own image looked back. It was as if the museum was juxtaposing the question of “Who is Thai” with the related question “Who are you?” The mirror invited me to think of myself as Thai within this context even as the mirror reflected my own non-Thainess back. It was visually evident that I (with my blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin) was not Thai. Next, I was directed by signs to enter a room to watch a movie that offered other answers to the question “Who is Thai?” The movie explained that the origins of the Thai people are unclear—they might have come from China, India, or from all over Southeast Asia. The movie also included contemporary interviews; several people responded that “Thai-ness” is expressed in food, in the wai (or traditional greeting), in language, and in geography.

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More than one person in the short film explained that being Thai is expressed through dance and other cultural traditions. The museum space and the objects displayed there demonstrate how art, often conflated with culture, serve as key touchstones to identities in Southeast Asia. Museums are places where identity is imagined in conversation with history. In Southeast Asia, tradition and heritage form important parts of that history, especially in relation to identity. Tourists visit the museum to learn about a country’s culture through seeing objects; citizens see their identities reflected back as part of a larger historical and world narrative. In some parts of Southeast Asia, ethnic diversity is displayed in the museum as both a celebrated and contested part of the national story presented in museums. Displays represent diverse pasts and people through clothes, languages, religions, customs, and the arts. Many Southeast Asian museums often gloss over recollections of conflict to favor a cohesive message of unity through diversity. The museum expresses tensions of old and new that people experience, inhabit, and traverse within city spaces. In this chapter I am going to focus on how two different museums located in Jakarta, Indonesia engage in discourses of national and postcolonial identities that reflect and contradict the city spaces where these museums are located.

Indonesia, Wayang, and Jakarta Indonesia is a vast archipelago, consisting of about 19,000 islands. Its population of about 255  million makes it the fourth most populous nation in the world; about 90 percent of Indonesians are Muslim, making Indonesia the most populous Muslim country in the world. The country is characterized by tremendous diversity— over 200 different ethnic groups with discrete languages and cultures. A distinct form of Malay language, or Indonesian, is the national language. Java is the most populous island and Javanese are often considered the dominant ethnic group. The capital city of Jakarta is located on Western Java and has a population of about 15 million people. Theatre and art have long enjoyed a unique position in Indonesian society and history—“Performance events have long been central to the life of Indonesian Societies in displaying power, affirming social relations and celebrating shared

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values, while also providing space for social and political critique” (Hatley 2008: 1). There are several distinct historical periods that are necessary to know to understand the formation of Indonesia and the role of the city Jakarta. Prior to colonization by the Dutch, the area consisted of several vast kingdoms that oversaw most of the archipelago. The most important of these was the Majapahit Empire between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. This powerful kingdom looms large from the past as the cradle of Indonesian culture and offers a historical precedent for unification of the many islands and ethnicities that make up Indonesia. Indonesia’s first president Sukarno often used the era as a touchstone in his work to unify the nation. The colonial period is the next period of importance to my work. Jakarta—then known as Batavia—was seized in 1619, and was the center of the activities of the Dutch East Indies Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC). The Dutch imagined the city as a “European oasis” in Asia and purposefully designed it like a traditional Dutch town. As Batavia developed, there were frequent battles between those who favored modern development and those who desired conservation to protect the “old world charm.” After independence in 1945, the clashes between the desire to rewrite versus preserve history persisted. President Sukarno remained president until 1966 when he was replaced by President Suharto’s “New Order.” Both presidents focused on modern development balanced with reifying Indonesian (Javanese) traditions and values. J. Joseph Errington talks about language, but his ideas could extend to culture and identity more generally when he writes that Javanese is “a symbol of the pre-national exemplary center, and Indonesian is an instrument of power and the ideology of the nation-state” (Errington 1998: 34). Throughout its short history, Indonesia has had to negotiate this centrality of Javanese(ness) to conceptions and realizations of a more general and official Indonesian identity. Indonesian puppetry, or wayang, is a diverse and dynamic art form. Wayang is often translated incorrectly as “puppet,” but more accurately means “reflection” or “mirror”; there are even forms such as wayang wong that are performed by people rather than puppets. “Wayang in Indonesia refers simultaneously to puppets as objects; a set of cultural practices that can be applied to a group of artists to create a performance [. . .], and a class of performance”

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(Cohen 2017: 363). Wayang kulit—kulit means “leather”—are flat, two-dimensional puppets that are performed against a screen or a string. The dominant forms are from Java and Bali, but several other areas in Indonesia have distinct forms of wayang kulit. Other types of wayang include wayang golek, or three-dimensional rod puppets, wayang klithik, two-dimensional wooden puppets, and wayang beber, a form of performance where scenes are painted on a scroll and narrated by a single storyteller. Wayang has a long history and many uses in Indonesian society. The exact origins are not clear, but I  have heard puppeteers describe evidence of puppet performances dating back to over ten centuries ago. Wayang has been used as a demonstration of power and distributer of knowledge within both the court and village. Performances are often held as part of significant rituals or celebrations such as marriage, coming-of-age, or exorcism. Today, the puppet figures are symbols of Indonesian identity, ideals, character, history, and current events. Performances are often funny and combine traditional elements with contemporary culture like hip hop music or Indonesian dangdut music. Of all the puppet forms in this book, the most complex and most often written about are the various forms of wayang in Indonesia. It is difficult to ever capture the whole of something this multifaceted and ever-changing so, like Jan Mrázek suggests, I will draw from my memories, experiences, and perspectives to offer my insight into this dynamic phenomenon (2002: 7).1 Indonesia has developed a complex network of museums that represent regional, state, and sometimes private interests. The exhibits in these museums negotiate the colonial past, independence, the New Order period, and the present. Some of the exhibits function like a hail from the past, implicating the spectator in the curious collections made by colonial leaders. Other parts of the museum express the ideology of a new country, grappling with how to foster a unified Indonesian identity with such a diverse populace spread out over many islands. The New Order used theatre and tradition as a tool, desiring to establish a strong central government and identity.2 Theatre and performance also offered a site of resistance, employing various strategies to challenge hegemonic regimes. Since Suharto’s fall in 1998, the focus of the government has shifted from central to regional and there is greater freedom and renewed energy. These different governments and ideas of identity have left their

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mark on Indonesia’s museums, allowing visitors to interact with the past and inscribe shifting meanings to static exhibits. The wayang puppets in the collections of two different Jakarta museums negotiate complex dynamics of old and new. “Students come to the museum to study both history and culture,” proclaims an article on the website for the Museum Nasional Indonesia (MNI) in Jakarta. The idea that the past (history) works together with the present (culture) is the primary narrative of identity told by these museums and their spaces in Indonesia. The museum collections, like the city Jakarta, are part of the country’s colonial past and demonstrate the connection of that past to present identities. Today, Jakarta is a tangled mess of high-rises, squatter settlements, and seemingly never-ending traffic jams. Jakarta is not a city that promotes leisure; people often go to several megashopping cities where residents hide from the noise, pollution, and hassle. Most of the recent development in Jakarta has consisted of superblocks, generally self-contained living, working, and shopping areas. In contrast, the areas occupied by the museums are analogous public spaces with indoor spaces for education and outdoor areas for people to gather and play. Most studies looking at Jakarta focus on the tensions between economic classes and the frequent displacement of the city’s poorest inhabitants and the complex power relations intrinsic therein. I instead view these public places as consciously created environments that, together with the puppets located there, articulate various Indonesian identities.

Locating the Museum Nasional Indonesia (MNI) The Indonesian National Museum or MNI is located at Medan Merdeka, or “Independence Square,” and is in central Jakarta. At the square’s center is the National Monument (Monumen Nasional, or MONAS), and radial avenues extend outward to subdivide the green space into triangular fields. The buildings and spaces around Medan Merdeka articulate “a particular national unity in postcolonial Indonesia: one based on the principles of inclusive, secular nationalism” (MacDonald 1995:  272). The square, MONAS, the museum, and its neighbors promote an identity that embraces the

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many differences in ethnicity, religion, economic status, and politics into one complex singularity of Indonesian-ness. The Medan Merdeka symbolizes the political and cultural center of the city. The space was first established by the Dutch who built the governor’s residence, a church, police headquarters, and other governmental buildings around the square’s periphery. The area, then known as Konigsplein (or King’s place), was intentionally designed to recall European order and dominance. After independence in 1949, the city of Batavia changed its name to Jakarta, but remained the capital. The square transformed from the center of the Dutch government in Indonesia to an expression of the new national identity, demonstrating that the legitimacy of the new state rested in part on European authority and symbols (MacDonald 1995: 277–8). Now, the square functions as an important public space in the otherwise overcrowded city. On Sundays residents gather to walk, play sports, ride bikes, buy snacks, and relax. Public space such as this was conceived of in Europe in the 1830s as a place to “improve the moral and physical health of ‘the poor’ ” (Amin 1993:  204). That history is still part of the space’s current use and persistent design. The museum is one part of this larger area that creates a postcolonial identity, or one that still negotiates the “continuity of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by European imperial aggression” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 2002: 2). The square’s main feature, MONAS, employs European signsystems to establish authority and power. MONAS represents the struggle for independence to the Indonesian people, and its shape is like a tall needle extending into the sky. On top of the 115-meterhigh tower is a gold flame that represents the inextinguishable spirit of the Indonesian people. The visual similarity of MONAS to the Washington Monument in Washington, DC is no accident—Sukarno purposefully employed a similar sign-system to invoke comparison between the two nations. Even so, MONAS also employs symbols particular to Indonesia—the base and the tall tower echo the lingga-yoni of Hindu iconography (MacDonald 1995:  278). This effort “was a step to make Jakarta a cosmopolitan world city which would stand out as a capital city with respect and decency” (Amin 1993: 205). Traditional signs of power were combined with a nod to similar international symbols to insert Indonesian identity into other legitimate, or established, global identities.

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Many of the government offices in this part of Jakarta, including the president’s, face the park and MONAS is visible from their windows. Because of this, the park around the monument has recently served as a popular place for protest or political action. This was not always the case; under Suharto’s New Order Government (1966–98), speech was controlled by the rather repressive state and such demonstrations were forbidden. Power was centrally located with the federal government. All that changed in 1998 when Suharto’s government was overthrown and replaced with a government by the people. Standing at the border of this center for civic life, whether leisure, protest, or community service, the museum complements these different enactments of identity. The design for the square, like MONAS, relays a complex interdependency on European and Javanese ideas of power and citizenship. For example, in the 1990s the master plan for the park was revised to intentionally integrate the traditional Javanese alun-alun, or royal square, into the European-styled civic center. Green space, trees, social and cultural activities, government offices, and national unity combine to “contribute to the identity of the city” (Amin 1993:  210). The history of the museum in Europe is intertwined with that of its colonies—“Such museums were founded with close connections to colonial policies.” Museums were likewise established in colonial locations (Mohr 2014:  11). MNI was first established by Dutch lovers of culture and science in Batavia (Jakarta) as the Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (Batavia Society for Arts and Sciences) in 1778; it is the oldest museum in Asia. The motto of the new institution was “For the benefit of the general public” (Kartiwa 1994:  viii). Objects were collected, arranged, and studied according to scientific methods that placed the colonizer as the center of knowledge— therefore information about who made the object and its context were rarely recorded (Mohr 2014: 24). The history of the museum reflects changing interests. Initially the Batavian Society and colonial museum reflected the economic interests of the colony. Early collections were maintained by elite members of society, and therefore a person’s access to view such an assemblage was an indication of his or her identity and status within that society. These collections developed into information centers about the colony to aid in the governing of the people living there. Finally, after independence, the museum stood as an icon to the new nation,

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articulating and reifying an Indonesian national identity (Mohr 2014: 13). Part of the building that now comprises the MNI was built in 1862. The collections, over time, reflected the different personalities and interests of the (white) collectors. Objects of ethnography and cultural interest were popular. In 2007, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had a new seven-story building built for the museum next to the old one (Mohr 2014: 31). MNI is part of a larger system of about 140 museums across the nation. These include museums run by local governments and private museums. The museum is originally a Western institution that was brought to the colonies, but after independence these museums work toward articulating a modern postcolonial identity.3 The MNI houses distinct collections dedicated to archeology, ethnography, geography, ceramics, numismatics and heraldry, prehistoric peoples, and history. There is overlap among these categories and, throughout, the diversity of the archipelago is emphasized.4 There are two buildings; the older of the two is GrecoRoman in style and leaves no doubt of the building’s non-Indonesian origins. This building is often called Gedung Gajah, or “Elephant Building” because in front of it stands a statue of an elephant that was a gift from King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) of Siam (Thailand) in 1871. The other building, recently built, is Gedung Arca (Statue Building), and it houses a display on history, ceramics, and a lavish exhibition of gold and jewels. A new building is planned for 2017, which will also house a laboratory, theatre, cafe, and souvenir shop. The three main buildings of MNI demonstrate the shift in how the museum functions and how Indonesians perceive their own identity. The first building is part of the colonial past, and still offers a kind of static view of Indonesian culture that focuses on traditions made visible through masks, puppets, musical instruments, miniature houses, and other folk objects divided by region or ethnic group. The old building uses the colonial past as a main reference point; many of the items shown there were collected by the colonizers. According to the guidebook for the MNI, “Collecting things was considered a noble pursuit by the upper classes at the time [1780s] and the number of objects donated soon began to increase” (1998:  4). In the old building, over half of the space is occupied by the ethnography collection that works with a short historical overview and map hanging on the wall, in the words of Suwati

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Kartiwa, the museum’s director, to “preserve Indonesia’s heritage” (Guidebook 1998: 2). The second and third buildings offer insight into how Indonesia views itself today and its aspirations for the future. The second building represents Indonesia’s move toward a decolonized identity: The term “decolonization” specifically indicates the conscious attempt to upset prior relationships of power that characterized the colonial period. The key practical element of decolonization, from the point of the museum collecting and display, seems to be a recognition that the people who produced these collections (or their descendants) are an essential, hierarchically equal part of the museum’s spectatorship, and they can materially contribute their own valuable perspectives on the manner of assembly and display of collections. (Taylor 1995: 111) Museums not only collect and organize material objects “in ways that reaffirm for a museum’s visitors the values and power structure of their contemporary society,” but also these objects represent the future while reaffirming those same values (Taylor 1995: 102). MNI shapes the identities of citizenry to align with dominant principles that shift over time. I  argue that these city spaces, museums, and even the puppets in the museums are thus able to adapt to the different needs of different moments in Indonesian history. Puppets are only included in the old section of the museum, in the exhibit of “ethnography.” The puppets on display are given little context or description. They are transformed from a vibrant object used in performance to an artifact. “The intimate bond between puppet and puppeteer is usually severed when puppets are accessioned by museums” (Cohen 2017: 361). The puppets in this display are not “beautiful”; they are not colorful, intricately carved, or dressed in fine clothing. No certain artist or puppet maker is given credit for their construction or design. These puppets are exhibited so as to make them appear like timeless relics of culture; they seem old and are thus visually connected to an ideal of a rustic tradition. The puppet’s simplicity is notable, because Javanese puppet carver Haeyanto distinguishes puppetsfor-puppetry and puppets-for-art. The puppets made for display would be “intricate and extremely fine” and “is so beautiful, that we would not be tired of looking at.” In contrast, puppets intended

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for performance would not be so intricate or beautiful (Haeyanto quoted in Mrázek 2000:  59–60). This rougher quality, or awat, indicates these puppets are puppets for performance. Even though they are displayed in the museum, with little indication of how they would appear on stage, their very simplicity aligns the puppet with the tradition of performance. Tradition, in the museum, is viewed as stable and static—a resource to draw from and display.5 In comparison, modernity seems ever-changing, dynamic, and innovative. Each is viewed as separate, on opposite ends of a cultural spectrum (Cohen 2016:  234–5); in reality, tradition and modernity are intertwined and, as conceptual categories, they are interdependent. In this context, the puppets serve as artifacts rather than art—or rather, what Raymond Williams coins as a “selective tradition”—“An intentionally selective version of shaping a past and a pre-shaped present, which is then powerfully operative in the process of social and cultural definition and identification” (Williams 1977:  115). MNI displays these puppets as a kind of intentional tradition to insert the performance of wayang into contemporary discourses of diversity and ethnic/national identities. The different buildings housing very different styles of exhibits reinforce the engagement between old and new within Indonesian society.

Puppets at MNI: Symbols of identity Laurie Sears describes how wayang served as a site of identity formation in nationalist and postcolonial Indonesia. Like the park, MONAS, and the museum, the puppets serve as a site of character exploration balancing the past and present. She explains the wayang’s traditional connection to power structures: The Javanese shadow theatre offered an excellent illustration of this identity between the ruler and ruled. Each shadow play began with a scene which reinforced the connections between the prosperity of the realm and the nobility and power of the ruler. Of course, these relations could be mocked by clever and subtle puppeteers—and they often were. But the imagery of rulers and their awesome power over the lives of their subjects was stressed in each shadow play performance. (Sears 1996: 124)

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Influences from European culture and society, together with independence, caused Indonesians to question the importance of the individual within the developing national identity. Traditional Javanese cosmology prefers a clear social order and sense of community over individual interests. In negotiating these differences, shadow theatre emerged as a likely vehicle for teaching the masses to respect tradition and the past in order to move them toward a successful “modern” future (Sears 1996:  130). The puppets on display in the old part of the museum reify the view that objects from the timeless past are crucial to a modern Indonesian identity. The ever-changing use and development of tradition was likewise erased so that it might hold an unquestionable place within society. Wayang is universal—and “seen as the only remaining vehicle of older traditions that Javanese elite and peasants could still—albeit imperfectly—understand” (Sears 1996: 125). Theorist Roland Barthes provides a framework for thinking through the way the image of the puppet might make meaning to the museum’s different audiences. Barthes defines the image as “re-presentation” and explains that the image contains more potential for meaning than speech but at the same time lacks the complex meanings of language. Barthes’s consideration of the image  resonates with Richard Schechner’s conception of performance as “restored behavior” or “twice-behaved behavior” (1985:  36–7). I  want to note that Barthes’s analysis focuses on an advertisement, because “the signification of the image is undoubtedly intentional” (1977:  33); likewise the puppets in the museum are also intentionally displayed. Barthes’s first mode of signification is the linguistic mode, which in this case includes both the caption that accompanies the image and the “pure image” (or puppet) itself. The words convey meaning to any reader who has sufficient knowledge in the language being used and thus most frequently “anchors” the meaning the viewer receives from the image by describing or identifying it. In the museum, often signs or captions that accompany a particular display anchor the “pure images” or puppets, photographs, and other objects on display. The text might also “relay” meaning, that is, it not only elucidates but also advances the action “by setting out, in the sequence of messages, meanings that are not found in the image itself” (Barthes 1977: 41). The puppet displays thus depend on this combination of text and image to convey meaning and give

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the viewer an impression of the diversity of Indonesian culture that is an important part of national identity. Wayang golek, or three-dimensional rod puppets made from wood, are one of the first displays the viewer encounters as they come from the entrance. The puppets are labeled in both Indonesian and English, as “Wayang Golek Jawa Barat,” or “The Puppet from West Java.” The description continues to explain that this style of puppets have emerged as most popular amongst the Sundanese region of West Java (of which Jakarta is a part). The narrative clarifies that the Javanese wayang golek emerged first in 1548, but the Sundanese variation only dates to the nineteenth century. In West Java, wayang golek is now considered more popular than the shadow puppets, and several distinct styles have emerged. The inscription ends by explaining, “Pementasan wayang golek kini telah berkembang di mana boneka wayang depot melakukan atraksi spectakular dan seolaholah hipud” (Nowadays, performances of wayang golek have grown into spectacular attractions with lifelike performances) (my translation). In contrast to the description of “lifelike” and “spectacular,” the puppets on display are quite simple and plain looking. There is nothing to suggest how the puppets are used in performance or how they might be brought to life. The wayang golek puppets in the museum are divided into two cases. The first case displays the five Pandawa brothers, the heroes of the epic story of the Mahabharata (Figure 2.1). Each short (English) description focuses on the personality of that character: Yudhistira: fair, wise, and smooth Sadewa: mysterious Nakula: honest Arjuna: handsome warrior, skilled at using arrows, and attracted many women Bima: brave warrior The Indonesian versions of the descriptions give much more specific details—for example, Arjuna is noted as the most popular character and Yudhistira is known for his devotion and spiritual cleanliness (suci). Either way, it is notable that the personality of the characters is emphasized over their role in the story, which is what most of the other character descriptions focus on.

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FIGURE 2.1   Wayang golek puppets on display in the Museum Nasional Indonesia. Photo by the author. The exhibit of the five brothers mirrors the common use of these and other popular wayang characters for understanding ideals of Indonesian personality and behavior. For example, Sukarno often likened himself to Arjuna to emphasize his skill as a ruler and warrior while simultaneously offering a tangible explanation for his notorious womanizing. “Sukarno would combine elements with the Javanese past with the Indonesian future to present his audiences with new ways of envisioning their identities in the postcolonial world” (Sears 1996:  222). The display of these characters with descriptions of their various personalities reflects and reinforces this use of wayang and wayang character. As Ward Keeler observed: Wayang’s influence goes beyond the arts and beyond conventional gestures. Imagery taken up from wayang crops up frequently in Javanese speech, and the art form provides many a metaphor to Javanese comments on all sorts of events. Children are nicknamed after the servant-clowns, and the labels for kinds of

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characters are used to characterize humans as well. In a religious mode, people often remark that we are all really just puppets, moved by the ultimate dhalang. (Keeler 1987: 15) The exhibit reflects the importance of these characters to understanding identity through the emphasis on describing personality traits of the characters in these stories. The Ramayana and Mahabharata, first brought to Indonesia by the first century CE, are living stories within the Indonesian present. They appear in comic books, on T-shirts, in art, performance, television, and everywhere. The characters and stories are part of the fabric of Indonesian society and represent religious ideas, moral philosophy, and mythic history. The stories told from these sources are constantly changing and are often a reflection of current societal or political concerns. The Javanese versions, in particular, are concerned with genealogy and the connections of characters and people from the past to the present (Sears 1996:  4). Wayang characters represent Indonesian (Javanese) identities because they reflect desired or not desired traits. Wayang reflects and instructs society, and the characters on display in the museum are part of this dialogue. The configuration and selection of the Sundanese puppets adhere to a Javanese understanding of character and identity reflect how Indonesian identity must negotiate Javanese identity; this one ethnic group is often at the center of Indonesian political discourse. The Pandawa brothers often appear within a Sundanese wayang golek performance, but they are rarely the focus of the performance. Instead, they exist in order to provide a meaningful structure for the more popular clown characters. Some of the clowns, like Semar, also appear in Javanese wayang kulit. The more popular Cepot, sometimes called Astrajingga, is considered the epitome of Sundanese manhood. This boisterous clown with a red face has become almost synonymous for wayang golek because of the character’s popularity with audiences (Weintruab 2004:  53). The performances of wayang golek that I watched in the city of Bandung had few characters besides Cepot, and they served as catalyst for his antics. Cepot, however, is absent from the exhibit. The display of wayang golek demonstrates how central a Javanese worldview is in these created discourses of identity on view at the museum. The history and present use of wayang reflects a complex negotiation between Dutch scholarship, which sought to understand

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and preserve the puppet form, and the Javanese/Indonesian desire to articulate identities as separate and distinct from the identities of the colonizers. The Dutch saw wayang as an expression of ancient Javanese values and culture, but lamented that it had degenerated from its auspicious roots. On the other hand, the Javanese saw wayang as a vehicle to articulate a distinct cultural identity (Boonstra 2015:  160–4). The text and image come together to favor some identities and histories while leaving others out. “The conflation of wayang with Java and Java with Indonesia are ones that continue to be used by orientalist scholars and Indonesian business and tourist promotion scenes—not to mention the political ruling elite in Jakarta” (Sears 1996: 215). At the center of the exhibit of Javanese wayang kulit are two photos (Figure 2.2). The top one shows what a performance looks like from the shadow side—the silhouettes of several puppets are visible against a red-orange background. Below that is a cut out image of a puppeteer, or dalang.6 He is holding two puppets that

FIGURE  2.2   Exhibit of Javanese wayang kulit at the Museum Nasional Indonesia. Photo by the author.

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extend out from the frame of the image into the exhibition where real puppets are displayed with other tools needed for a performance. The effect reflects Barthes’s “denoted meaning,” which is created by the image but requires cultural or contextual knowledge. The museum attempts to communicate some of this knowledge—what a performance looks like, reasons for a puppet performance, and such through various visual signifiers, but nowhere in the museum are there recordings of what a performance sounds like or videos of a performance. The museum depends on the experience of the viewer (has she ever seen a performance), for the puppets and these objects to communicate their full meaning. Barthes’s assertion that the image contains meaning depending on context is echoed within the Javanese idea of pasemon, which means “to seem like.” Sears explains, “In Javanese performance traditions, pasemon can refer to the use of story as a subtle caricature of reality; thus, the technique of pasemon serves to bring the observer/hearer’s attention to those domains which often lie outside the boundaries of any particular story” (1996: 7). Just as the image points the viewer to ideas outside the picture, the puppets in the museum function like wayang in a performance—meaning shifts to create a relationship between the object and the viewer. Better understanding the characters and how they are displayed will elucidate how these objects articulate identity. The selection and display of the characters for the Javanese wayang also emphasize the importance of Javanese identity to Indonesia. There are seven puppet characters in the display—five are grouped to the viewer’s left and two to the right. The five, on first glance, seem to mirror the characters in the wayang golek display. Their body size, shape, and shrimp tail hairstyles suggest they are also the five Pandawa brothers. The descriptions, however, emphasize the Javanese names sometimes given to these characters. The signs name them as Bima, two Janoko figures, Nakula, and Yudistira. Alternate names are given for both Bima (Werkudoro) and Yudistira (King Puntodewo). The Indonesian description explains that these puppets are also known as Arjuna; this is not explained in the English definition. On the other side is the god Kresno (Kresna) and Satiaki. The description and appearance of Satiaki resembles Arjuna—“Is well known as a fair and honest figure reflection of a true warrior,” but Satiaki (Setyaki) is described in the comprehensive Ensiklopedi Wayang as a knight from the

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land Lesanpura who is a hero and often accompanied by Kresna (Dwiyanto, Susantina, and Widyawati 2010: 437). The presence of Setyaki further removes these characters from the Hindu epic of the story and recasts them as Javanese myth. The final mode of meaning described by Barthes is the rhetorical or connotative mode that inscribes meaning onto the viewer through the body. Unlike the second mode, which still suggests a “correct” reading, this third mode is based in variability and surprise. Barthes explains: The language of the image is not merely the totality of utterances emitted (for example at the level of the combiner of the signs or creator of the message), it is also the totality of utterances received: the language must contain the “surprise” of meaning. (1977: 47) Thus the meaning of the image depends on an interaction with the viewer, and there is a potential for a different reaction and different meaning for each individual viewer. Many visitors to the museum, whether Indonesian or foreign, might have limited experience with wayang and have difficulty drawing from personal experience to make meaning of the exhibits. There are no videos or detailed descriptions of what a performance might look or sound like. One exhibit (Figure  2.3), featuring several types of wayang that children might play with, together with other small toys, invites all visitors to imagine interacting with the puppets in play. This exhibit offers the best example of the connotative mode of meaning making. The dominant figure in the exhibit of games is a wayang puppet that appears to be made of straw or grass. There are also four clown dolls and a couple of other toys. The other toys, two kinds of whistles and a spinning top, are common in many cultures and would give most viewers a “way in” or kind of familiarity for considering the wayang toys. The straw figure is described as something that a rural child would probably make while tending cows or other animals. The object on display is quite large and elaborate, it looks more like something made by an artist rather than a child. The description does not specify that it belongs to a particular ethnic group, but the style and shape of the puppet is clearly Javanese. Across from the toys, the “real” wayang sit in their exhibit case. A faint reflection in

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FIGURE  2.3   Exhibit of children’s wayang at the Museum Nasional Indonesia. Photo by the author.

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the glass can be seen from the leather puppets as one gazes at the toys. Through imagining him or herself playing with the toys under the gaze of the Javanese wayang, the viewer is invited to occupy a Javanese/Indonesian identity space. The doll figures have heads carved from wood, with fabric wrapped around to suggest clothes. These puppet-toys have faces that are similar to the well-known clowns in Javanese wayang purva. There is no distinct label for these characters, so it might be assumed they are part of the wayang mainan—or toy wayang—but they are not made of rice stalks. The characters look like dolls and might have been used to act out stories. The puppets, whether real or toys, constitute only a small part of the many objects on display in the ethnographic section of the museum. Even so, these objects are given prominence in the guidebook, which indicates their important role in symbolizing heritage and identity. The section on Indonesian history and its cultural origins has for its only illustration a Javanese wayang figure. The figure is not identified as a specific character in the catalogue, and is not one of the characters immediately recognizable. According to dalang Rudy Wiratama Partohardono, the appearance of the puppet is “Katongan alus,” or a refined male monarch. “Wayang klitihik does not have any single fixed character” and “most of them are extremely flexible in usage” (Partohardono 2017, personal communication). The selection of this figure to represent Indonesian culture and history demonstrates the Javanese/Indonesian emphasis on the historical rather than religious nature of wayang. They overwrite the character’s connections to Hinduism in favor of an interpretation of these figures as mythic history. Wayang klitik do not often tell stories from the Mahabharata like most wayang in Indonesia, but rather tell stories from indigenous history. The description of the character appearing a couple of pages later in the catalogue states, It is recognized that wayang has been of immense significance in the development of Javanese culture and values, both moral and philosophical. Wayang klitik are flat stick puppets, made out of wood only and used without a screen. (Rosi 1998: 23) The alus character type represents the kind of universal attributes that are desired in the Indonesian people more generally. As Marc Benamou explains, “As a root metaphor wayang is certainly as

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ubiquitous in Javanese speech as baseball is in American speech. Where Americans might speak of a curve balls and slow pitches, of strikes and fouls, Javanese people allude to shadows and puppeteers, to Sri Kandhi and Puntadewas” (2002: 271). The wayang klitik figure did not appear on display when I visited the museum; these puppets are rarely used in performance. One explanation is that the wooden figures are more likely to be damaged in performance than the leather ones, making it expensive for dalang to keep a performance set. More often, wooden wayang like these are sold in souvenir shops for tourists to take home and display as a memento from their travels. According to a recent article in the March 2017 Jakarta Post, 32-year-old Khotib Febi Mistar has been working to rebuild the tradition. He uses wayang klitik to tell the story of the Wali Songo, or the nine Islamic leaders who introduced Islam to Java. The popularity of Songo’s performances demonstrates how wayang changes and adapts to better represent contemporary society and identity.

Heritage and nostalgia in Kota Tua “Wayang revolusi is a type of wayang that very few people know anything about,”7 proclaims an article on the Indonesian news website Channelsatu.com, about a 2015 exhibit at the Museum Wayang. This exhibit highlights the puppets and story of a type of wayang kulit that captures the events and people of Indonesia’s independence. The exhibit coincided with both the celebration of ASEAN Day at the ASEAN Consulate and the holiday marking Indonesian independence on August 17. Accompanying the exhibit were performances by dalang Nyi Sri Sulansih performing a story about the revolution and the younger dalang Ki Nanang Hape performing wayang urban revolusi. The museum’s curator told the Jakarta Post that the museum was hoping to bring more young people to learn about traditional culture by mixing old and new performances and exhibits (Setiawati 2014). His plan seems to be working—when I visited in August 2015, the museum and the square in front of it were bustling with people celebrating independence and engaging with history through wayang (Figure 2.4). This is a marked change from the empty museum I encountered the first time I went to the puppet museum.

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FIGURE 2.4   A crowd celebrates Independence Day outside the Museum Wayang. Photo by the author. I first visited the Museum Wayang in 2008 while I was in Jakarta processing my visa for a year of research on a Fulbright Fellowship. I  was underwhelmed. The taxi I  took to the museum had a hard time finding it, the area around the museum—Kota Tua, or “Old Jakarta”—seemed quiet and deserted, and the museum itself was dark and empty. The man sitting by the desk, who sold me my entrance ticket, seemed excited to have a visitor. After I explained that I  was in Indonesia researching wayang kulit as part of my dissertation, he eagerly took me around the museum and explained the different puppets on display in the glass cases. The displays were dark, dusty, and there was very little information posted about the puppets or their context. I returned to the museum in 2013, and was surprised to see a complete change. After UNESCO declared wayang to be Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008, the museum received a US$46,000 grant for renovations and improvements to the collections. The difference was quite noticeable—the once dark hallways were now well lit, and most of them even had air conditioning. There were

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many visitors, including tourists from other countries and several large groups of school children. Puppets were grouped in many different kinds of exhibits and one new section included puppets from all over the world. Another visit in 2015 revealed that the museum and the area around it had continued to thrive. People rented bikes to ride around the square, a large stage was set up for an all-night wayang, and music blared from several sources. The museum had new interactive activities, a performance by a group that combined wayang with rock music, and a temporary exhibit on wayang during the war for independence. The Museum Wayang sits in a very different location than the MNI and employs different methods of display and contextualizing its puppets—this speaks to different ways nostalgia functions within Indonesian identities. The exhibit and the changing spaces of Fatahillah Square in the old city demonstrate how old identities are being used by youth to articulate Indonesian identities. These identities are not based on historically accurate details of the colonial period or of the violence of revolution. Rather the exhibit, the museum, and the spaces in the old city work together to construct an identity based on nostalgia, or longing for an idealized past. At the entrance to the special exhibit of Wayang Revolusi is a banner giving some history and context about the collection. The sign explains, in Indonesian and English, that after Indonesia declared its independence in 1945, there were still battles, especially in Java and Aceh.8 Wayang Perdjoeangan, more commonly known as Wayang Revolusi, was created in the 1950s by Indonesian artist R.  M. Sayid to help leaders promote Indonesian nationalism. The puppets “are not based on any story,” declares the sign at the museum, but are “used to tell tales from Indonesian history.” The characters on display reveal that many of those stories involve interactions between Indonesian soldiers and officials with the Dutch colonizers. The Wayang Revolusi puppet collection itself represents complex negotiations between Indonesia and their prior rulers. The Wereldmusem in Rotterdam had acquired the puppets in 1965, and only returned them on a long-term loan in 2005. The handover of the 150 puppets represented “our common past and strengthening the ties between the twin towns of Rotterdam and Jakarta,” declared the Wereldmuseum’s director. Up until 2005, the museum had denied previous requests to hand over the puppets to Jakarta because they feared that Museum Wayang did not have sufficient

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FIGURE  2.5   Wayang Revolusi at the Museum Wayang. Photo by the author.

climate control to protect the valuable collection. Money from both Dutch and Indonesian entities funded the project, which included not only climate controlled cases to store the puppets, but also the creation of copies to be used in performance (Bartelas 2005). Each case in the Wayang Revolusi exhibit has a sky-blue background and fake grass lining the bottom of the display. A sign identifying the contents of each case sits on red carpet in front of the green grass. The red-and-white banner of the Indonesian flag hangs in the sky above the puppets (Figure 2.5). The puppets are positioned to demonstrate moments from Indonesian history, but the small signs located in each case focus on the characters instead of the event. The grass and blue background emphasize the scenes as part of history rather than trying to represent the aesthetics of a puppet performance. The curators of the exhibit did not put all 150 puppets from the collection on display, so the ones that they did select might be seen as telling an intentional story about independence and Indonesian identity. The first case contains “Pidato Bung Karno,” or “Sukarno Giving a Speech.” On one side

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is a puppet figure of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, standing behind a podium with his arm raised, as if giving a speech. Behind him is the puppet of a government official. Standing in front, as if to listen to the speech, are puppets representing the numerous people of Indonesia, dressed in different costumes to represent various ethnic groups. The citizens all have their hands crossed in front of their body, in a position of respect. Sukarno’s arm, raised above his head, translates into a position of power. The puppets do not follow traditional aesthetics of alus and kasar (“refined” and “unrefined”) that would be typical to wayang puppets. A hero like Sukarno would probably be considered alus, and alus characters traditionally would have a smaller body and smaller movements would match their physicality, therefore positioning him with his arm above his head would be an especially remarkable pose. The Indonesian viewer is invited to identify with the power of this imagined historic moment in two ways. One is the variety of representation of the people, or bangsa (citizens), listening to the speech. Traditional clothes, such as the puppets are shown wearing, is a common indicator of Indonesian diversity appearing in museums, books, posters, and so on. In contrast, Sukarno and the other officials are not wearing traditional clothes; instead they both wear a Western-style military uniform, marking them as both modern and global leaders. Ward Keeler, writing about clothes and masculinity in Myanmar, similarly notes, “To wear Western clothes is to lay claim to being a member of an international community in addition to, or more than, being just a member of a local one. It means, in a word, being modern” (2005:  212). Additionally, Sukarno had a Javanese father and Balinese mother; likely he was raised with influences from both Islam and Hinduism, but only Islam is represented. The puppet figure for Sukarno wears a songkok, a traditional hat that would reflect his adherence to Muslim beliefs. Islam remains the dominant religion in Indonesia; it is likely most of the visitors to the exhibit are also Muslim.9 The display reifies tradition and ethnic heritage within Indonesian identity while celebrating the global uniform and Muslim identity of Sukarno. Behind Sukarno is the kayon puppet, a large leaf-shaped puppet that begins and ends a wayang performance. This often intricately carved and painted puppet can be used in the performance to represent anything for which there is no other puppet. It can be fire, water, a chariot, a weapon, or any character—“What it represents

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then depends on how it is moved and on the theatrical context” (Mrázek 2000: 50). The kayon, sometimes called “the tree of life,” symbolizes the axis of the world and is often used in performance to show the passage of time. Its position in the scene connects this moment of history into a larger sense of time and place in the world—as Kathy Foley describes, “The kayon invites Indonesians to contemplate participation in larger cycles than humans experience in one life span” (1990:  75). Taken together, the puppets in this scene celebrate Indonesian identity as both global and local as realized through history. The exhibit stresses the role of independence, or the revolution, in multiple periods of history. The display consciously seeks to encompass Indonesian history into a singular visual experience. For example, in one case there are puppets portraying women from the Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga, or PKK, talking to a woman from the village. The PKK began in 1973 to advocate for women and families in rural areas and to encourage economic development. “Indonesian cultural values still hold firmly that the family is the foundation of society and the nation, and women are considered the pivot of family life. Consequently, the PKK programme seeks to install in rural women the appropriate knowledge, attitude and skills to perform this role” (Thorbecke and van der Pluijm 1993: 275). The viewer is not told that this scene could not have happened during the move for independence, but rather values of family are folded into the history of the making of the country. Indonesian identity is constantly being remade in the present through engagement with the past. Time, values, and geography are rewritten to suit the needs of the present moment.

Geographies of nostalgia The Museum Wayang is located on Fatahillah Square in the area of Kota Tua Jakarta, heralded as the “city’s main international tourist draw” and replacing the mall as the new local hangout for the city’s hip youth (Sastramidjaja 2014:  443). Conservation and beautification measures have limited traffic in the area and worked to develop the area as a place for recreation, relaxation, and historical contemplation. Within the square, “notions of shared history and identity have fostered improved human relations by highlighting a

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sense of belonging.” Furthermore, Martokusumo aptly argues that it is impossible to separate the social from the historical in urban heritage projects like Kota Tua (2011: 182–3). Conservation began in the 1990s, but early efforts were limited in their scope and effect. Individual buildings were targeted for renovation, but the area was not considered as a whole. In the 2000s, efforts became more expansive and focused on creating an enjoyable urban experience and developing a particular sense of place. Outside spaces were recognized by city planners to be as important as the structures that surrounded them;10 my own experiences reinforced this. My first visit was after traffic had been limited in the area and the square developed as a community space, but the buildings were still neglected and the area seemed quiet and empty. After the museum was renovated, this area had been established as a hub of social and cultural activities. Kota Tua has been developed in a way to emphasize its pastness by allowing the buildings and streets to appear older, especially when compared with the modern Medan Merdeka. In Kota Tua, however, conceptualizing the area as heritage through restoration and reclamation was much more recent. Medan Merdeka represents a constant negotiation of space from colonialism, independence, and the three different formations of government power so far in Indonesia. Kota Tua, on the other hand, represents a global shift in the 1990s that recognized the interdependence of cultural heritage and economic development (Martokusumo 2011:  184). Several plans to renovate the area and connect it with other historical areas of the city were proposed and eventually rejected. The planners found it difficult to negotiate the obvious connections the area had to the Dutch colonial past with the desire to create spaces in the city that would glorify a unified national identity. Sastramidjaja recognizes that the area serves three different groups: citywide conservation efforts working with the principles of global heritage preservation, tourist marketing, and youth seeking a connection to their past (2014: 445). The recent influx of youth interest in enacting history demonstrates a changing attitude about heritage and nostalgia in Indonesia. The changes I witnessed in my three visits to the Museum Wayang demonstrate how nostalgia now plays a larger role in Indonesian identity, especially among the youth. Appadurai describes “patina” as the quality by which an object is given value through a social context that values it because

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the object appears old. “Patina feeds a deeper stream in the social life of things, and that is the capability of certain things to evoke nostalgia” (1996:  76). Appadurai argues that many postcolonial societies give value to nostalgia for a past that never really was: “This imagined nostalgia inverts the temporal logic of fantasy (which tutors the subject to imagine what could or might happen) and creates much deeper wants than simple envy, imitation, or greed could by themselves invite” (1996: 77). In this section I have looked at how the Museum Wayang combines puppets and space to invoke nostalgia as a key feature of Indonesian identity. Nostalgia in relation to the museum and city spaces might be understood as more than just a longing for the past. It is an active interaction with objects and spaces that allows the past they invoke to be reused and refashioned to suit contemporary values. The historical spaces of Kota Tua allow youth to perform and interact history as a popular past time. These “performances” allow for interactive play. In the Museum Wayang, performance is also suggested through the different kinds of images on display—the positions of the puppets in scenes, the captions, and the ways the displays delight and surprise the viewer, inviting the audience to witness a timeless and static performance of “intangible cultural heritage.” Dominic Johnson, writing about visuality in the theatre, argues, “Images in the theatre do more than they mean. Performances act upon audiences, spaces, histories, and cultures, and call into question our assumptions about the world” (2012: 17). The museum, the city, and the puppets are all working together in a performance of culture through reclaiming memory. Young people in Jakarta demonstrate engaging with the past through performance in an attempt to negotiate contemporary identities in relation to colonialism. Youth come to the Kota Tua area at night to engage in wearing costumes, eating food, watching movies, and even listening to lectures on historical topics. These events celebrating the colonial era are referred to as tempo doeloe, or “the old times.” They even sometimes adapt costumes, making them appear even more similar to the characters in the Wayang Revolusi exhibit of Dutch masters or Javanese elite. These social events, which have been going on for over ten years, combine with the city’s efforts to revitalize this historic area. “Together they break the pattern of neglect of colonial heritage under previous regimes, making it an intrinsic part of the nationscape” (Sastramidjaja

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2014: 444). Nostalgia for a past that never really existed combines with Indonesia’s ambitions to be a global leader in the many city spaces of Jakarta and the museums. Throughout Southeast Asia, museums navigate complex terrains of these different colonial pasts and desires for national identity.

CHAPTER THREE

Spaces of Healing: Sbeik Thom in New York City In the spring of 2013, “more than 125 Cambodian performers, filmmakers, and visual artists lit up New York City’s stages, screens, galleries, and public spaces—sharing their distinctive artistry with an international audience.” So announced the organizers of the Season of Cambodia Festival (SOC), who sought to present the arts and culture of Cambodia to an international audience, “marking an unprecedented citywide partnership to celebrate one of the world’s most vibrant and evocative cultures” (SOC Press Release 2013). The location of New York City framed Cambodian arts as part of larger transnational dialogue of arts and culture, which affected the reception of each event within the festival. Cambodian modern dance was performed as part of a series at the Guggenheim Museum dedicated to new work, glass plates of dancers taken in Cambodia at the turn of the century were displayed at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, and photographs of “bomb ponds” with accompanying video documentary of Cambodians describing American violence in Cambodia entered a narrative of history and reconciliation at the Asia Center. A “centerpiece” of the SOC was a performance of sbeik thom, or large shadow puppets, that took place in the rebuilt World Financial Center, now known as Brookfield Place, across the street from the former World Trade Center.1 Sbeik thom, in which puppets are danced aloft by male puppeteers, is considered one of the oldest

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and most important performing arts of Cambodia.2 Through this performance, SOC sought to remember Cambodian art after genocide, as its sponsors sought not only to celebrate Cambodian identity through the arts, but also to “set the stage for other postconflict nations seeking renewal through artistic expression” (About SOC 2013). During the Khmer Rouge period (1975–9), many artists were murdered and their equipment destroyed. Subsequently, sbeik thom performers had only a small number of puppets and faint recollections of how they were used in performance in order to reimagine, revise, and reinvent the tradition. The focus of the performance, in the context of the festival, was on renewal and healing; locating the performance of sbeik thom within the rebuilt site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks created a complex set of resonances concerning memory after violence, and it is those that I shall explore in this chapter.

Setting the scene—New York and Cambodia The stated purpose of the festival was to revise history and identity through the arts, and organizers saw New York City as integral to that premise. According to Phloeun Prim, the executive director for Season of Cambodia and Cambodia Living Arts, a primary sponsor of the festival, “So much of the perceptions of Cambodia is around the killing fields and the tragedy, how can we start to change the perceptions of a whole nation? The entire idea around Season of Cambodia was to create a platform for Cambodian arts to be exposed to the world, and we decided the first project would be in New York City” (SOC Highlights 2013). Reinvigorating a modern Khmer identity through the arts has required non-Cambodian aid and support, and the festival had many international sponsors from businesses, individuals, and NGOs. The festival’s main sponsor was Cambodia Living Arts, a not-for-profit organization with offices in Phnom Penh and the United States. Their central mission is “to illuminate and advance Cambodian arts and culture, driving international support and attention to creativity and diversity of cultural expressions

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in Cambodia today” (SOC Mission 2013). Writing in a more skeptical vein, Catherine Diamond has argued that in Cambodia, “many performers tend to see foreign support as their only hope” (Diamond 2012: 124). Either way, transnational formations have been key to the work of renewal through the arts for Cambodia, and this dynamic was on display in the siting of the sbeik thom performance, which was geared toward celebrating tradition and renewal, nature and urban development. Brookfield Place was still under development on the day of the performance; there were signs of construction and few shops were open. The Winter Garden Atrium, where the performance took place, is a large indoor courtyard with benches, palm trees, and potted plants hanging from the high ceiling. Behind the stage is a wall of windows that look out onto a busy park, the river, and the Brooklyn skyline. A  site-specific mural, Churning, by Cambodian artist Svay Sareth, covered an outside wall that was visible from inside the performance space. The mural shows a popular park, located near the palace along the river in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. A monument honoring the period of Vietnamese and Cambodian friendship after the Khmer Rouge is in the center of the park in Phnom Penh. The monument has stirred controversy because of a long history of conflict between Vietnam and Cambodia. In Sareth’s mural the monument is covered by a rendition of “Churning of the Sea of Milk”—a massive bas-relief carving from Angkor Wat. The famous original carving shows the god Vishnu urging demons and angels to work together to create an elixir of immortality. In Sareth’s mural, the heavenly creatures are wearing army fatigues, suggesting that opposing forces might be able to truly come together in friendship. In his Artist’s Statement, Sareth wrote, “Replacing one monument with another draws attention to their similarities; two sides, in tension, attempting cooperation. While Churning’s tug-of-war references Cambodia’s past and present, its coded yet succinct critique on conflict and power struggle is universal.” Taken together, the mural, the trees and plants, and the architecture indexed Cambodia and New York against each other in ways that sought to generate a complex interplay of memory and meaning for the audience and performers. The audience was at once watching the performance and watching the city—the

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FIGURE  3.1   The audience watches the performance of Sor Neakabas at Brookfield Place. Photo by Darial Seed, used with permission. wall of glass behind the screen looked out onto a terrace featuring shops, restaurants, and social activity—creating two narratives of revision side by side (Figure 3.1). Straw mats were laid out on the floor in front of the stage to invite the audience to watch the show according to (Cambodian) convention. Watching Cambodian artists and the city established the basis of a collective experience between New Yorkers and Cambodians framed around renewal. Here, the transnational dimension of Cambodian arts production found an apt location. As Amanda Rogers puts it, transnational formations are a “form of situated practice through which cross-border activity and imagination are used to remake everyday worlds” (Rogers 2015: 8). During the performance some people moved around to get a different view, children played or danced to the music, some people sat quietly watching and others standing outside watching through the windows came in to get closer to the action. Smells from the restaurants and food trucks around the plaza wafted by as people brought snacks and meals closer to the performance space. Audience and performers, Cambodia and New  York, were thus joined together through the dynamics of space, creating a community of arts and healing.

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Opening—rituals, good, and evil Sbeik thom joins the Khmer people with ritual, myth, and history through physical objects, music, and dance. Each individual puppet depicts a particular character or scene from the Reamker, the Cambodian Ramayana. The emphasis of a sbeik thom performance is not on creating lifelike movement; rather, the dancer and puppet join together to create a spectacle that supports the narrated and sung story. Sbeik thom (Figure  3.2) translates as large (thom) puppet, and skin (sbeik)—the ornate puppets average four to six feet in height. Made out of cowhide, the two-dimensional, reddishbrown puppets are non-articulated. One or two wooden sticks are attached to the puppet and these are used to manipulate, or dance, the puppet against the screen. A traditional Khmer orchestra (krom phleng pin peat) accompanies the performance and one or two narrators describe the action and give voice to the characters. The screen, made of cotton or muslin, is about ten feet in height and twenty or more feet in length. Historically, a large bonfire was built behind the screen in order to give light to the performance and cast

FIGURE 3.2   Sbeik thom are large puppets held aloft by a dancer. Photo by the author.

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the shadows of the puppets and dancers upon the screen, although performances now typically use bright electric light. Publicity for the SOC categorized its sbeik thom performance as “theatre and ritual.” Historically, sbeik thom functioned within Khmer ritual and was performed at the court of the king’s palace. At Brookfield Place, the aesthetics, structure, and content of the performance were designed to create a social experience that drew from the aesthetics of ritual to bring the audience together in an experience of healing. In the glass-enclosed pavilion of the Winter Garden atrium, sat a stage with a large screen erected on it. An LCD projector was located behind the screen to cast the moving image of a flickering fire—allowing the shadows of the dancers together with the puppets, each held aloft, to become visible for the audience. In front of the screen, stage left, on a raised platform, sat five musicians with a variety of drums, gongs, and other traditional Khmer instruments. Two narrators, one male and one female, stood stage right, next to the screen, in order to describe the action and to give voice to the characters. Above the top of the large screen, English subtitles were projected to provide translation of words and story. A traditional form and digital technology were therefore configured together to offer an accessible “ritual” experience to the audience. Before the performance, the cast held a ritual ceremony called sampeah kru to connect private space with public and Cambodian space in New York City. About twenty minutes before the public performance, the members of the troupe joined together in offerings and prayer in order to honor their teachers and hope for a successful performance. This ceremony called upon the invisible spirits, past teachers, gods, and the physical world of the past and present to offer thanks and ask for protection during the performance. The simplicity of the first ceremony, done in private in a small room, contrasted with a second ceremony that was performed onstage, for the audience gathered to watch the puppet show. The program explained this was to “request guidance, good luck, and strength from their deceased masters.” These invocations conventionally unite performers and audience together in a cleansing from evil. Here, the ritual invited the past, remembered and reconstructed in the bodies of the performers and the space of the performance to join together with the present in an act of creation. Sva Prachap, a short scene dramatizing a battle between the white monkey and the black monkey symbolizing the battle between good

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and evil, was performed after the opening ritual, thus following the traditional structure of a sbeik thom performance. The battle bridges the world of ritual and the world of the story, dramatizing the healing aspects of ceremony. The shadows of two dancers, each holding aloft a giant puppet, appeared on the screen. This troupe, from the Wat Bo pagoda in Siem Reap, near Angkor, uses a white screen with a black border about four feet tall, extending to the ground. The black screen often obscured the bodies of the dancers; the upper body and sometimes only the hands holding the puppets were visible (some sbeik thom troupes avoid using this border, explaining they feel it visually disassociates the human from the puppet.) The dancers made large sweeping motions with their entire bodies to animate the puppets. For fighting, the puppets and dancers turned together in a spinning motion and each puppet would strike the top of the other. Sometimes the dancers with the puppets would come around to the front of the screen, allowing the audience to view the intricate and energetic movements required to move the puppet with nuanced feeling upon the screen.3 The battle between the white monkey and the black monkey continued without either emerging as a clear victor. Finally, the monkeys asked a wise hermit to give final judgment, and the hermit ruled that the white monkey was in the right and thus, as the program explained, “good triumphs over evil.” The moment of judgment only took a moment. The main story of the performance had not yet begun, and already the audience was reassured that everything would be fine in the end; the past evils that reside in bodies and places would be defeated.4 The specific pasts that inhabited the bodies and venue of the SOC performance were called forth through artistry and adaption, rather than direct reference. No mention was made of the Khmer Rouge or the killing fields—this absence has been observed in other Cambodian arts and culture, but this version of Sva Prachap demonstrated a shift in values (Thompson 2013:  83). Pech Tum Kravel, former Minister of Culture and the Fine Arts in Cambodia and a noted historian of sbeik thom, gives a summary of how the story was told before the Khmer Rouge. In Kravel’s version, after the white monkey captures the black monkey he goes to his teacher Preah Muni Eysi for final judgment: Preah Muni Eysi advises them to stop fighting and learn to help each other because they are both from the same order of being;

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they must wait for the arrival of an omnipotent figure and serve him as his soldiers. He tells White Monkey to set Black Monkey free. (Kravel 1995: 20–1) Kravel’s version of the story resonates with aspects of a Southeast Asian cosmology that often favors balance between positive and negative forces. Perhaps, however, in the aftermath of traumatic violence, societies are no longer able to process a world where both hero and enemy are of the “same order of being.” Rather, “evil” has been used to describe both the 9/11 attacks and the Khmer Rouge genocide. Each of these events emerged out of complex political and historical circumstances, and these contexts are obscured by media accounts and political statements that tend toward an oversimplified rhetoric of right and wrong, or good and evil. But the idea of evil, of something beyond control and comprehension, can also allow an absolution from blame and responsibility. The organizers of the SOC festival often engaged in this emotion-driven rather than reason-driven discourse, declaring the arts a tool in national and international healing after evil and disaster. One way of interpreting this is that the form of sbeik thom itself needs the reassurance that good will triumph over evil after the Khmer Rouge, and the location of the performance complemented that message for an audience aware of the building’s associations with 9/11. The ritual elements of beginning of the performance and the opening section, Sva Prachap, reflected a moral framework designed to comfort.

Tradition, heritage, and memory The main story in Wat Bo’s performance, The Magical Arrowhead Dragon, or Sor Neakabas, which is taken from the Reamker, reflected the festival’s themes of transformation and healing.5 In the story, the hero Rama sends one of his soldiers, Jumpuhpean, to spy on the enemy camp of giants.6 When Jumpuhpean arrives at the camp he sees that Indrajit, the son of Ravana, king of the giants, is near to completing a seven-day ritual for immortality in order to help him defeat Rama’s army. Jumpuhpean transforms himself into a bear in order to distract Indrajit from his meditation. Indrajit is furious when he learns about Jumpuhpean’s trick, and the giants charge into battle. During the battle, Laksmana, Rama’s brother,

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is killed when Indrajit shoots him repeatedly with magical arrows. Rama is heartbroken when he learns of his brother’s death and appeals to Garuda, the king of the birds, for assistance. The Garuda is able to revive Laksmana by removing all of the arrows from his body; Rama and Laksmana return to their encampment to live to fight another day. In the story, death is not final. Each scene was presented with a constantly changing parade of puppet figures that were danced across the stage, often behind the screen and sometimes in front. The movements of the puppeteers and the presentation of the performance constantly connected sbeik thom to dance—and through dance to the memories of Angkor. Even though the puppeteer’s feet were rarely clearly visible, the movements included stomping and lifting a leg, bent and held back, with the foot flexed in a classical Cambodian dance pose. After the opening scene between the white monkey and the black monkey, a single male dancer crossed onto the stage. His movements were vigorous and sometimes monkey-like as he pranced about the stage. As he exited, a line of large puppets paraded on. Not all of the puppets looked like those often depicted in exhibits and photos of sbeik thom. For this performance, smaller puppets were also used; the shapes presented people in simpler, more contemporary dress. These smaller puppets are normally used in the form of sbeik touch (“small leather”) and provided variety to the performance while symbolically bringing Cambodian people into the mythic story as participants/characters. The performance was structured by a combination of static scenes of dialogue between characters, traveling scenes with music, and exciting battles. Sometimes dancers would come onstage and interact with the puppets, with humans and puppets all representing characters in the drama. I  have observed similar innovations in other performances in Cambodia; these were not just attempts to make the performance appeal to an international audience, but rather part of a larger trend to use Cambodian arts to speak to a contemporary audience both in and outside of Cambodia. That said, these additions rarely figure in videos, television programs, or DVDs of the form, indicating that they might not yet count as “tradition.” The climactic battle between Laksmana and Ravana’s soldier Virulamuk was performed in front of the screen by two male actors through dance, instead of puppets (Figure 3.3). Their bodies onstage cast shadows on the screen; real bodies in the present

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FIGURE  3.3   Two dancers perform the battle between Laksmana and Virulamuk. Photo by the author. visually interacted with the mythic puppet bodies that referred to the past. In so doing, the performance echoed a dynamic explored elsewhere by SOC. The movements of the actors echoed those from the “Memory Preserved:  Glass Plate Photographs of Royal Cambodian Dancers” exhibit at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts (Figure  3.4). Historically, Khmer dance functioned as the embodiment of a cosmic ideal. The dancers are believed to be inspired by the apsara (a spirit of the heavens), and are an “embodiment of the life-creating energy” that were likewise connected to Angkor within its architectural representation of the creation of the universe (Cravath 1986: 185). The bodies on stage, to borrow Marvin Carlson’s term, are “haunted” by the bodies from the past through memory and visual representation (2003: 54–6). Hamera explains that Khmer survivors are “reduced to shades themselves, they are both haunted registers of atrocity and avenging angels, impelled by other ghosts, even in diaspora, to reimagine the generative possibilities of Khmer culture” (2002: 71). Likewise, the

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FIGURE  3.4   From the exhibit of photographs at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts. Photo by the author. sbeik thom performance did not mention the past, Angkor Wat or the killing fields, but wordlessly revised those memories through its reimagining based on carvings from wat (pagoda) walls and dance. The arts focus not on the tragic past, but on an idea of past glories that continue to inform some Cambodian ideas about what can be realized in the present and future. The pose of the dancer represented in the photograph and echoed onstage is meant to represent “Khmer” through the apsara, and this haunts the performance of sbeik thom. This kind of representation is re-performed in many venues around Siem Reap as dancers billed as apsara dance in bars, as part of buffet dinners, and in “international” stage shows for tourists. In the SOC performance, the bodies are haunted by the invisible memories of loss and destruction. In creating the production for presentation in New  York, the artists worked to revise elements of the performance in order to appeal to an international audience. Sbeik thom is one of several art forms in Cambodia that demonstrates the value of heritage

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to Cambodian identity. Historian David Chandler describes how Cambodia is often conceived as a “changeless society,” a belief encouraged by the French colonial administration that persists today (2008: 3). Even so, the performing arts often shift according to aesthetics and to society’s needs. The French colonial administration, King Sihanouk, tourism, and national pride have each placed different values on the performing arts in Cambodia, in turn affecting the aesthetics and reception of the work.7 In the case of the SOC, the executive director, Phloeun Prim, explained that at first the troupe at Wat Bo was hesitant to innovate in their performance, preferring instead to preserve the tradition in its “pure” form. The group was “passionate about the original form’s pure preservation,” but eventually they were persuaded. “We spent three hours talking to Sem [Venerable Pin Sem, Head Monk of Wat Bo] and eventually gained his trust, and we brought in artistic advisers from the [Cambodian] Royal Ballet to provide intensive dance instruction, musical experts. We sent a lighting designer from New  York to Siem Reap.” When asked about how he felt about the final result, Prim declared, “The results were miraculous—the team in New York couldn’t believe the stage presence, the gestures, cadence of the music, the complete refinement on that first night” (Knox 2013). Arguably, these innovations—and the tensions around them— reflect the recent history of the sbeik thom form. Advertisements for the SOC described sbeik thom as an “ancient art form,” “sacred,” and a “centuries old tradition.” However, during the violent attempt by the Khmer Rouge to wipe out Cambodian culture and return the country to year zero, puppets were destroyed and artists were tortured and killed, requiring the Wat Bo troupe and others to reimagine, revise, and reinvent the tradition of sbeik thom. Wat Bo was founded in 1992 by the Venerable Preah Moha Vimalakdharma Pin Sem (Venerable Pin Sem), who stated, “We believe that the arts is the spirit, soul, and wealth for the nations, for all nations in the world” (Sbeik Thom Video 2009). While living in a refugee camp at the Thai border, he realized that the puppet arts of sbeik thom and sbeik touch (the smaller and more popular shadow puppets) had all but disappeared, and the Venerable Pin Sem felt great sadness: “We wanted our art to be re-born, so I began to find ways to re-create this art form” (Sbeik Thom Video 2009). Art work within the walls of the wat, together with childhood memories,

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provided insight into how sbeik thom had been performed in the past. The Venerable Pin Sem invited twenty-five other monks to join him when in 1993 the group relocated to the temple Wat Bo. The troupe sometimes performs for local festivals and celebrations, but the majority of their performances today are for foreign audiences. Historically, performances could last up to seven nights, but today there is no one who remembers how to accomplish the longer performance. There are currently forty-two members of the troupe at Wat Bo, although only sixteen were able to travel to New  York for SOC. Performers train at the temple for several years in order to master the skills necessary for a performance. They must learn how to hold the puppets, how to walk them across the screen, how to perform movements from Khmer dance, and how to make the puppets gesture. The movements must be synchronized with the music and narration, and each character has its own particular patterns and ways of moving depending on status, size, and degree of refinement. In a 2013 interview with the current troupe leader, Vann Sopheavuth, I asked how performers were selected, and he replied: We haven’t really thought about selection requirements. What they are trying to do is preserve the culture and the arts. These students were reciting or studying at the pagoda . . . and were interested, so that is how they are selected. [There was no audition process and] there is no basic requirement, but just to continue the culture and the heritage. Without these kids the monk was really scared that the culture would be lost. Right after the regime ended in Wat Bo only a few of the puppets were left. They needed to rebuild it. Building on Richard Schechner’s notion of theatre as “restored behavior,” Joseph Roach writes, “The concept of restored behavior emerges from the cusp of the arts and human sciences as the process wherein cultures understand themselves reflexively and whereby they explain themselves to others” (1996: 218). The artists worked with few memories and traces from the past to recreate an art form as a tradition for the present. The imagery and idea of Angkor provided an important touchstone for recreating a sbeik thom that the artists felt was authentic. Khmer artists long for some “pure product’; they create

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dance or perform with puppets in order to recreate an idealized past that probably never really existed. Hamera explains this dilemma: Literatures, lectures, and performances authored by Khmer artists are replete with the assertion of this necessity for reproducing the pure Khmer product/fetish, even as they freely admit there are few existing models to which reproductions can be compared, and even as they acknowledge the exigencies that disrupt such reproduction. (2002: 75–6) The performance at SOC complicates notions of tradition and authenticity because it was presented as an ancient tradition, even as it was adapted for international audiences. Vann Sopheavuth explained to me that bringing the performance to New York was a chance to share the form with another audience because sbeik thom was not just part of Cambodian identity, but he described it as also part of world heritage. At both practical and theoretical levels it is not possible to imagine current Cambodian arts as anything but global—opportunities for performance, training, and publicity rely on foreign support. For SOC, Cambodian arts are not just seen as part of Cambodian identity, but rather are an important part of how Cambodians are asserting themselves into the world.8

Transnational memory beyond SOC In the summer of 2014, a little over a year after I  watched the performance in New York, I was able to travel to Cambodia and meet with the Venerable Pin Sem at Wat Bo. He spoke about his desires for the artists in the troupe to continue to develop and share their message of hope with audiences. Venerable Pin Sem was optimistic about the future of Cambodian arts and culture, especially sbeik thom. For him, the arts are an expression of Wat Bo’s greater purpose, which is the teaching and practice of Buddhism. He explained that he believes all people are created equal and that peace and love are the primary values to be practiced in life. Venerable Pin Sem feels that the arts in Cambodia embody and promote the universal truths of forgiveness and understanding by drawing from the Khmer past and looking toward a global future.

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These global aspirations found distinctive material manifestations during the Wat Bo troupe’s time in New York, where they saw the Broadway musical Spiderman and attended a performance at the Metropolitan Opera House. The puppeteers also talked happily about the opportunity to see other theatre and interact with other artists; they saw Cambodia reflected as one artistic nation to another. For example, during the performance of Spiderman, the theatre flew the Cambodian flag. Other opportunities have since come to the troupe. In the fall of 2014, the group traveled to Bangkok, Thailand to participate in the World Puppet Carnival with 166 other puppet troupes representing 180 countries. Van Sopheavuth, the group’s day-to-day leader explained, “We are so proud to promote our leather theatre, our beautiful facet of traditional Khmer culture, in front of representatives from 80 countries. It is a special chance to show them who we are, where we come from and what we bring to the festival.” The group performed the same show as in SOC, but used a bonfire instead of electric light because “We try to do some great things that our ancestors did in the ancient times, so it will become most interesting for people in this modern era” (Kaliyann 2014). Artists from Wat Bo have continued traveling as participants in puppet exchanges hosted by the ASEAN Puppetry Association.9 Through the efforts of Cambodia Living Arts, the group currently performs weekly in Cambodia as well. Taken together with the complex dialogue between form, place, and memory during SOC, we can see how this sbeik thom event realized the possibilities of transnational performance to invigorate local performance, creating new memories and traditions.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Negotiating the Past and Present through Spectacle Colorful puppets, as tall as buildings, illuminated from within, seem to float down the streets for the excitement of thousands of tourists and locals. The puppets were created by a team of international artists, local designers, and children. From a small event in 2007, the parade has evolved into a central celebration every February in Siem Reap—these larger-than-life, luminous puppets have paraded down the streets of this city, which is located in the shadows of the temple complex Angkor. These giant puppets are spectacle—“Spectacle is a public display of society’s central meaningful elements” (Beeman 1993:  380). Spectacle is primarily visual, grand in size, and dynamic. Spectacle offers a special event set apart from daily life, and puppets offer a unique potential as spectacle because of their uncanny nature: There is something in the puppet that ties its dramatic life more to the shapes of dreams and fantasy; the poetry of the unconscious, than to any realistic drama of human life. That is part of its uncanniness: that for all its concreteness, the puppet’s motions and shapes have the look of things we often turn away from, put off, or bury. It creates an audience tied together by child-like if not childish things. (Gross 2009: 183) I employ the idea of spectacle, not just because the puppets in question are large, but also because spectacle provides a useful

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framework for thinking about these performances as dynamic markers of identities in the past and future. Spectacle is a certain type of entertainment that brings audience and performers together; modern society emphasizes the individual, but spectacle creates community.

Spectacles of memory and identity in Cambodia In Cambodia, memory intertwines with spectacle and space to create contemporary identity. Primarily, two memories haunt Cambodian identity—the first is the great kingdom of the past as symbolized in the temple complex of Angkor.1 This period, between the ninth and twelfth centuries, was a prosperous one for Cambodia. Complex temples and developed cities placed the Khmer kingdom as a leader in the ancient world. The importance of this period to the Khmer sense of self is demonstrated by the collections and mission of the National Museum in Phnom Penh: The National Museum of Cambodia houses one of the world’s greatest collections of Khmer cultural material including sculpture, ceramics and ethnographic objects from the prehistoric, pre-Angkorian, Angkorian and post-Angkorian periods. The Museum promotes awareness, understanding and appreciation of Cambodia’s heritage through the presentation, conservation, safekeeping, interpretation and acquisition of Cambodian cultural material. It aims to educate and inspire its visitors. (National Museum of Cambodia 2013) Based on the contents of the museum, it can be said that Khmer culture and identity are rooted within the many sculptures and buildings of Angkor (Figure 4.1). The end of the great kingdom happened in the thirteenth century with the invasion of Thailand, followed by a period of uncertainty until the intervention of the French in 1863. Cambodia was granted independence from the French in 1953, but Cambodian identity had already begun to form as a distinct combination of Buddhism and a glorified sense of the past as rooted in Angkor. The temple complex,

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FIGURE 4.1   Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Photo by the author. declared a UNESCO Heritage Site in 1992, dominates the economy and society of Siem Reap. The use of Angkor has fluctuated through the century, depending on which group had power, but the past represented in the grand temples repeatedly “emerged as a unifying thread among colonial, communist, intellectual, indigenous, and European narratives. Outwardly homogenous and single-stranded, this was a multi-stranded narrative, cross-woven with allusions to ancestral brilliance, contemporary decadence, ancient statecraft, modernity, Buddhist cosmology, and cross-cultural synergy” (Edwards 2007: 243). Today, the image/name of the temple appears on the flag, is a popular brand of beer, is a chain of convenience stores, and occurs throughout state and popular culture. Siem Reap “is known by both tourists and many Khmer nationals as the center for Khmer culture because of the great Angkor temple complex just outside of town” (Tuchman-Rosta 2014: 525). It is impossible to consider identity in Cambodia without accounting for Angkor. The period of the Khmer Rouge (1975–9) also haunts the memory and identity of Cambodian people. During that period money was

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abolished, towns and cities were forcibly emptied, schools and other civic institutions were shut down, religion and other traditions were outlawed, and about two million people, or 21 percent of the overall population were killed or died of malnutrition or disease.2 Two historical sites remain as a reminder of this horrific time, and can be thought of as spectacles of memory. One is Tuol Sleng, the site of the prison S-21, and the other is the monument at Choeung Ek, the fields where many were brought to be executed and their bodies left. Each of these sites is ghoulish in its own way. The museum at S-21 shows the school pretty much as the Vietnamese soldiers found it in 1979. The classrooms had been converted into cells, some by partitioning off the room into multiple, small holding areas (Figure 4.2). Other rooms were used for interrogation and torture of the prisoners. Boxes of meticulous records and photographs were kept, and many of these hang on the walls of the museum. The prisoners in the photos appear scared, broken, and sad—many visitors remark how haunting those images are.

FIGURE  4.2   A classroom converted into a prison cell at Tuol Sleng. Photo by the author.

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In contrast to the dismal prison, the memorial at Choeung Ek appears peaceful and beautiful. At the center is a large stupa that was constructed to commemorate the many who died there. Within the stupa are stacked hundreds of skulls from the surrounding areas. As the visitor walks around the beautiful grounds, other places are sectioned off to reveal the many bones and skulls that have come to the surface after rain. Near trees are the remains of hundreds of babies that were bashed to death there. The visitor can rent headphones that guide her around the space and both narrate the past and offer interviews with some of the survivors. Each location unites past and present through the haunting spectacle. During the summer of 2014, at a celebration of the anniversary of the temples at Kraw Kay (a complex about an hour away from Angkor Wat), the students of Zaman University created a theatrical performance that dramatized the different roles of both the temples and periods of destruction in the country’s history as contributing to the “imagined community” of Cambodia (to borrow Benedict Anderson’s term). In the performance, the figure of the apsara, or “heavenly nymph” was used to represent the temple complex. The apsara, numbering about 1,796, appear all over as bas-relief carvings throughout the temples. These beautiful figures of women hold poses that are now copied by dancers to give their work a sense of the past.3 The performance by the students demonstrated how dance, often symbolized by the apsara, functioned within a larger system of how classical dance, or robam boran, shifts and changes to adapt to Cambodian society’s ideas of self (Tuchman-Rosta 2014: 527). The opening scene in the student’s performance dramatized the kingdom of Angkor and featured a woman giving offerings to and taking care of an apsara statue. Rather than depicting historical accuracy— for the apsara are believed to likely represent contingents of court dancers kept in temples and palaces as a demonstration of power— the scene demonstrates how the apsara have become an embodied figure for the past. Through staging a scene of honoring the apsara, the students enacted honor for all that is represented within the temple complexes. At the end of the scene, Thai soldiers stormed the stage and were shown destroying the temples. The woman pleaded with the apsara to flee to safety with her—but the apsara maintained that she could not leave her kingdom and would remain and face the danger. As the sad woman exited the stage, the apsara was shown being knocked down by the soldiers.

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The scenes in the short play each focused on a different moment in history and offered a different relationship with the temple. The next scene jumped ahead in history to the end of the French protectorate and the founding of the kingdom of Cambodia. A  Cambodian flag was displayed, accompanied by enthusiastic applause from the audience. The apsara was helped up from the ground and the Cambodian flag, with Angkor appearing in the middle, was draped around her shoulders (Figure  4.3). The jubilation did not last for long; students came on stage, dressed in black and wearing the signature red-and-white-check krama, or traditional scarf, to represent the Khmer Rouge laying siege to the land. The soldiers pillaged the temple for its riches and the apsara was left neglected to fall into ruin, lost and forgotten. The final scene dramatized the defeat of Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, and Cambodia was shown to have returned to its peaceful state. The play ended with the UNESCO declaration of the temple at Kraw Kay as Tangible Cultural Heritage. The Cambodian flag,

FIGURE 4.3   A Cambodian flag is wrapped around a figure dressed as an apsara, at a performance at Zaman University. Photo by the author.

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with its image of Angkor, was shown on the projection screen as the audience stood to cheer and sing the national anthem. As distinct pillars of Cambodian identity, Angkor and the Khmer Rouge demonstrate complex relationships between the past and international influence. Brigitte Sion describes how the museums and the tribunal seeking justice perform a particular memory of the genocide designed to offer a reconciliation of conflicting identities; many of the people in the government after the Khmer Rouge also served as soldiers and officials under Pol Pot’s government (2011:  3–4). Sion also notes that many of the memory sites in Cambodia, such as the museum at the prison S-21, Tuol Sleng, and the killing fields of Choeung Ek focus on attracting and serving “paying international tourists” instead of Cambodian nationals (2011: 7). Likewise, it could be observed that currently the complex of Angkor is accessible mostly to paying foreigners and their guides. Important symbols of memory and identity primarily target outside audiences who bring revenue. The stories of identity at Angkor, Choeng Ek, and Tuol Sleng are visual—they offer a spectacle of glory and tragedy that holds the spectator in awe. “Spectacle is a public display of a society’s central meaningful elements. [. . .] The meaningfulness of a spectacle is usually proportionate to the degree which the elements displayed to the public seem to represent key elements in the public’s cultural and emotional life” (Beckerman 1984:  380). These two are intentional creations out of an unintentional past; they demonstrate the need for present markers of Cambodian identity, one that can better negotiate foreign and local audiences.

Giant puppets Performances, such as dance, in Siem Reap often focus on cultural heritage through a demonstration of cultural resiliency. Most of these are actually hybrids of traditional and contemporary elements, but they all consciously work to represent “traditional” culture. One performance, “Smile of Angkor,” is owned and developed by a Chinese company. The grand show has English narration, subtitles in multiple languages, and lasers and other special effects to stage highlights from Cambodia’s mythic history in six episodes. “Smile of Angkor” has over one hundred performers and tickets cost

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upwards of US$50. Most figures place average monthly household income for Cambodians at about US$100, making a ticket to the show impossible for local audiences. The website for the show boasts, “It is the first Grand Epic show that recreates the Angkor Civilization in all its glorious aspects. Our show takes you on a journey from foundation to prosperity of Angkor and the worldwide famous Angkor Vat, through folk tales to ancient customs, from past to present.” Another group, Phare:  The Cambodian Circus, advertises on their home page that they are “Siem Reap’s most unique, authentic, top rated evening entertainment.” Later the website describes that the group’s “shows are unlike any in the world:  dance, theater, original live music and breathtaking circus arts are used to tell uniquely Cambodian stories, both traditional and modern.” Each of these groups uses spectacle and acrobatics to tell stories from the past through modern means. The movement’s of the performers may give a nod to traditional performance, but it is combined with many international influences. Many other places in Siem Reap combine dinner and “authentic” classical performances of a variety of dance and puppetry, not just the robam boran (the style most often described as Khmer classical dance). At the Alliance Art Café, they advertise dinner and “the art of shadow puppetry and classical apsara dance as old as the temples of Angkor Wat.” Other places offer impressive buffets of food that the audience grazes on while a performance happens on one side of the room. Each example demonstrates how, whether actually traditional or not, these shows often reference tradition and heritage in their marketing and presentation, which add to the value of the performance and help attract an audience. There is very little room or discourse regarding theatre and performance in Cambodia without consciously positioning it within “tradition.” This is because theatre and performance struggles to find an audience, and must depend on tourists to make a reliable income. If the performance can be understood as “traditional,” it becomes part of the larger kind of authentic cultural experience that tourists seek. In order to create this aura of tradition and authenticity, each group and type of performance, like robam boran, depend on the perceived connection between the dance and the royal courts of Angkor, “legitimizing it as an obligatory tourist experience” (Tuchman-Rosta 2014: 529). In contrast, The Giant Puppet Project (GPP) does not refer to tradition in its main description. The website states, “The Giant

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Puppet Project is a Cambodian children’s community art project that provides a creative platform for disadvantaged children to foster and promote confidence and self expression through art.” Stuart Cochlin, the group’s organizer, told me in an interview in 2014, “The Giant Puppet Project is not an NGO [nongovernmental organization]—it is an event.” This statement exemplifies the project’s mission to bring together artists, children, and spectators together for a yearly spectacle of puppets. They do not wish to be another outside voice telling Cambodians what to do. The project began in 2006 as the brainchild of two artist friends, Sasha Constable4 and Jig Cochrane, who wanted to come out to Cambodia and do a workshop, “so we thought why not just turn it into a big street parade?” The first parade happened in 2007 and involved a couple of hundred kids and a very small audience; Cochlin jokes that it was “maybe like thirty people.” It was a start—and each year the parade grew in size. Cochlin’s bio on the GPP website reads, “Stuart has a clear plan for the future of the project, he wants to make himself completely redundant and watch as the entire project is Khmer managed.” The group has worked on this mission for a number of years. In about 2009 the group began a relationship with the arts school, Phare Ponleu Selpak in Battambang, a large town about three or four hours southwest from Siem Reap.5 Phare Ponleu Selpak is best known for its circus training program and astonishing performances in Siem Reap and internationally. The mission for the school, opened in 1986 as locals returned from refugee camps at the Thai border, is to train local students for productive careers in the arts and other vocational fields. At first the foreign artists from GPP would travel to Battambang to teach students there the basics of puppet making and then integrate them into the process in Siem Reap. It was difficult—few of the Cambodian artists spoke much English and the foreign leaders spoke little or no Khmer. But through engaged effort, the team in Cambodia was ready to step into leadership roles in 2015 when Jig Cochrane, who served as the lead artistic director, did not come to Cambodia. In 2016, Cochrane was back, but only to offer guidance on making more complicated puppets and to offer further advisement. Another artist, Lucy Gaskell, began working with them on how best to light the puppets by wiring LED lights on the inside. She works with local electricians to train them on how to do this creative work safely and efficiently.

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In 2016, I was able to observe both Cochrane and Gaskell working with the artists from Phare and other Cambodian volunteers. When I arrived, the building stage of the puppets had already been happening for two weeks. The puppets are constructed outside on the grounds of Center for Khmer Studies (CKS).6 At CKS a large room was set up to store materials and as a place to go to get out of the hot sun. In the room were stacks of drawing and printouts of research used to design each puppet. Cochrane explained that he gave the lead artist for each puppet some ideas to help generate their design. He advised them on what shapes or body positions might work best for each puppet. As the puppets were constructed, the artists would sometimes clash with Cochrane on the best way to achieve a desired effect. It was a balancing act between Cochrane’s experience and the artists’ ideas, made more difficult because of working through an interpreter. Miscommunications about schedule or how to do something often required time to undo. Mistakes meant cutting into the applied tissue paper to make adjustments, and then puppets would require another layer to cover up tears and holes. Cochrane said that through the years the youth artists have gained more confidence, and each year they desire to make more interesting and ambitious puppets. Since the beginning, GPP has focused on collaboration with local youth and aid organizations. For the most part, the groups represent the deep dependence Cambodian society has had on foreign NGOs and funding. While I was there, they had visits from several people from the United States and Australia who were the main sponsors for particular puppets. They explained that they were inspired to help the children by the stunning craftsmanship in the incredible parade. The spectacle was vital to capturing the attention of sponsors, some of whom first heard about the parade on a chance encounter during a trip as tourists to see Angkor. Each puppet is a collaborative effort between the artist, Cochlin, and the sponsors. Cochlin sets the theme for the parade and often suggests particular animals or characters. An artist designs and plans each individual puppet, and is given feedback and advice from Cochlin. The sponsors, whether an individual or an organization, are often allowed to give input during the design process. “We try to mix it up between endangered species and mythical creatures—we don’t want it all to be the same,” explained Cochlin. Sometimes the group has tried to design puppets that might directly connect

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to Angkor Wat through character, motif, or type of puppet. One year they experimented with a kind of shadow puppet in order to reference the remarkable tradition of sheik thom or large shadow puppetry. They constructed a screen and a truck pulled it, with performers dancing behind. Cochlin admitted, however, that the large two-dimensional puppets without color had a hard time competing for attention in comparison to the garish threedimensional animals lit from within.

Aesthetics of spectacle As a performer, puppets employ a distinct set of aesthetic principles. In this section I  am going to use the aesthetics of the puppet, as described by Steve Tillis and others, in order to analyze the way the puppets function as spectacle in the parade. I will focus on the parade I attended in 2016 because I believe examining the puppets together as part of one cohesive event gives better insight into the ways they work together and individually within a semiotic framework. I  will reference the puppets from previous and later years as it is beneficial to do comparisons over a time period. There are three basic types of signs that puppets employ: design, movement, and speech. Each of these can be further broken down into the three qualities of imitative, stylized, and conceptual. Within each there are also numerous variables such as size, materials, the way the puppet is controlled, or even the language(s) used in performance (Tillis 1992: 118). Applying these terms offers a more precise vocabulary for understanding the puppet when audiences might vary and the creation of the puppet  also crosses cultures and history. This approach might be more limited for examining a puppet genre tightly bound to culture and historical context, like the Indonesian wayang or Burmese yokthe thay. The purpose of the puppet that the signs work together to achieve, is to “fulfill the audience’s psychological desire to imagine it as having life” (Tillis 1992:  113). The design and execution of the puppet is, for the most part, intentional. The artists research and create a design that is then executed from various materials. Parts of the puppet, however, are always unintentional. The desired materials might not be available, or may not work as planned; adjustments are made, and accidents happen.

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Because the audience might be understood as a cocreator in the puppet performance (Tillis 1992:  116), there is likely to be great variation in the meaning that is conveyed or how the sign-systems interact. The sign-system of the puppet can be understood to be mostly intentional; the artist executes his or her own vision. Art, by its very nature, is not perfect and often accidents happen, or alterations are made, and part of the finished product may vary from the initial intent. Additionally, the audience can interpret and understand the signs of the puppet in unintended ways. This truth of all theatrical performance is heightened when, like the GPP, the audience and artists represent different cultures, societies, and histories. Even my own perspective must be understood as single and unique, although I  can employ a deep understanding of the artists’ work, intent, and context. It is because of this variation that Tillis’s terminology and approach for understanding the puppets are especially useful for GPP. I  desire to use a precise vocabulary that offers specificity in description in order to best support the ascriptions I derive.

Design Puppet design often emphasizes key elements that work to communicate liveness to the audience. Tillis describes the key elements of design as “Features and size of the puppet, the physical material that it presents to the audience, and the on-stage absence or presence of its operator(s) (1992:  120). Often puppet design carefully emphasizes some qualities while leaving other features diminished, or absent. This is because the puppet sign-system might be understood to function similarly to an abbreviation—a word is reduced to its essential elements in order to make the meaning clear. Different puppet arts emphasize different features; for example, in Javanese, wayang—the head—is the most important element and therefore the design and operation of the puppet work to make this part of the puppet the most visible to the audience. The head may be larger than what is proportionate to the human body, and the puppeteer will manipulate the puppets by pressing the head into the screen. The body may appear blurry, or indistinct, but the audience is able to understand the character of the puppet through the head.

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The audience for GPP sees the puppet’s head first, and it is the head that has the most identifying features in these puppets. Some of the bodies are very similar in shape and it would be hard to tell the difference between a water buffalo or a lion without the differences in the shape and details of the head. Very few of the puppets show any emotion; the faces do not have expressions that would communicate that the character is sad or happy. Most characters also do not have an expressive mouth; for example, the giant red ant in the 2016 parade had only large pinchers that protruded from the bottom of the head. These were not articulated and they hung and bounced a bit as the puppet moved down the street. The large, round, blue eyes also did not show any kind of emotion. The large yellow lion had a bright red mouth, but it cut from one side of the face to the other without any upturn that might suggest the lion was happy (Figure  4.4). The edges of the mouth were slightly downturned, but the bright red and yellow of the lion worked against communicating that the lion was sad or frowning. The soccer players, because they were human, might have offered

FIGURE 4.4   The lion puppet under construction. Photo by the author.

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the best possibility for communicating emotion or mood. The large white faces had blue mouths that did not appear to be a smile or frown. The eyes of the soccer players, blue with glowing white pupils, resisted any indication of emotion and made the puppetcharacter appear sleepy or unattached from human feelings. The size of the puppets, even though it may seem obvious for giant puppets that they are large, is an important aesthetic. Size can be understood to work in two different ways to communicate scale, and both are at play in the GPP. The first is “relative size” and that is the size of the puppet in comparison to the other elements on the stage. Many puppet performances are scaled-down versions of a realistic or fantasy world. The puppet is scaled to fit in the scenic design and therefore that scale assists the puppet in appearing lifelike. In the GPP, the puppet’s stage are the streets of Siem Reap, and in this world the puppet is not to scale. Lions are as big as buildings and ants or other bugs are the same size as the lion. The artists make all the puppets the same relative size, which means that most of them are not to scale with their surroundings or with each other. This manipulation of relative size contributes to the strangeness of the puppets. The soccer players that were in the parade in 2016 were the first time the parade attempted human figures. There was concern that they would be too difficult to move and too tall to maneuver down a street with so many low hanging electrical wires. But the organizers of the festival also wanted to try to include human figures because they felt these might better represent the interests of the Cambodian people. Soccer, for example, was popular to watch and play among many old and young Cambodians. The experiment must have been considered a success, because the 2017 parade had a larger number of human figures; even classical Cambodian dancers were rendered in puppet form. The second way puppets communicate through scale is the “absolute size” of the puppet. This is the scale of the puppet in comparison to a real-life human scale. Tillis argues that this is where the size of the puppet is most able to communicate. He gives the example of the hand puppet Punch from the Punch and Judy Show. This ridiculous character is able to act out extreme violence against both his wife and baby, and yet remain humorous and lovable because he is a small hand puppet. His absolute size is small and this reinforces the idea that he is harmless in spite of his wild and

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violent personality (Tillis 1992: 125). The puppets in GPP, on the other hand, are very large in absolute size. This makes them appear especially “powerful and foreboding,” leaving a strong impression on the audience. The event of the parade is a celebration reinforced by the whimsical design and colorful puppets. The size however, contributes to the puppets’ power; they are not easy to dismiss. This effect is more pronounced as they wind down the narrow streets. The puppets travel very close to electric wires and other hazards as they move down the street in the parade. Cochlin explained they were “very paranoid” about it and they cover the puppets with fire retardant that is brought from the UK and keep several fire extinguishers in the vehicles traveling along with the parade. A few of the puppets seem to float down the street because not all of their legs can move. There is just not enough room for them, and the materials would not support that kind of top-heavy puppet on two or four thin legs. Other aspects of design fall along a continuum of being realistic or stylized. Some puppet forms are highly stylized, with the shape and color being dictated by traditions that communicate particular meaning to an audience familiar with those conventions. The puppets for GPP are not realistic; the color, shape, and method of manipulation all reinforce their stature as a puppet and not a living object. One of these is the bold colors used in the design, which was rarely realistic. For example, the large water buffalo was blue and the lion was yellow. These colors and features of the puppets come alive from hundreds of LED lights attached within their structure. Additional lights are attached on the puppets’ bodies. Light has been described as a key part of spectacle. Bernard Beckerman describes how, throughout different periods in history, fireworks were described as a powerful spectacle—“For centuries, the display of fireworks was considered a spectacle of spectacles, the climax of astonishing royal and civic celebrations” (1984:  2). Fireworks and other forms of illumination were dynamic entertainments, connected to grand architecture, such as castles and temples, and often served as visual reminders of past glories in battle (such as the Fourth of July fireworks in the United States). Illumination is important because it allows the spectacle to be seen by many people; details are bold and grand. Beckerman continues to describe how fireworks create a sense of exhilaration driven by the uniqueness of the event.

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Like fireworks, the illumination of the Giant Puppets drives the spectacle of the event and creates a feeling of awe within the onlooker. Beckerman’s description of the effect of fireworks aptly applies to the Giant Puppets: “Lines of fire, flashes of color, alternation of extraordinary brightness with complete blackness affect our senses physiologically” (1984: 4). The illumination and spectacle contribute to the importance of the event and therefore the importance of the youth participating—“The more astonishing the display, the greater the glory imparted to the occasion, whether in honor of a day, a person, or a people” (1984: 4). The event creates something completely new and instead of a narrative of identity that focuses solely on past glory from Angkor, the GPP celebrates an idea of new, future glories. Another element of design that reinforced the illusion of the puppet was the materials used in its construction. The puppets were constructed out of a base made of mostly rattan, bamboo, and other natural materials. Colored tissue paper was placed over the base and then a mixture of glue and water was brushed over it in order to both attach it to the base and to make it firm. Some of the puppets then had other decorations attached that were made out of shiny foil paper. They glistened in the sunlight, but were more opaque than the tissue paper and did not allow the light to shine through. These different materials point to the objectness of the puppet and reinforce its stature as a stylized, rather than living, thing. Cochlin explained that it was important for the puppets to be made out of natural, local materials as much as possible. He wanted the puppets to reflect the natural beauty and resources of Cambodia and to resonate with traditional Cambodian crafts. The choice of materials reflected the interplay between foreign influence and local expression that resonates within the Cambodian artistic world more generally. Catherine Diamond, writing about theatre, dance, and puppetry in Cambodia in 2003, observed that the theatre performers contend the country is now too poor to support them and say that their local community base, devastated by the Khmer Rouge, has not recovered under the present government. They see foreign support as their only hope and live in expectation of its eventual arrival rather than developing a self-reliant approach. Since 1991, Cambodia has received more humanitarian aid than any other country in Asia. [. . .] Why do

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artists seem to show so little initiative and wait passively for outside help? Is it possible for arts to develop without relying so heavily on foreign direction, collaboration, and aid?” (148) The relationship of foreign influence on the arts in Cambodia continues to be a somewhat contentious field (Wolfarth 2017: 420). US-based art scholar Phally Chroy has accused outside influences of oppressing “an organic Cambodian contemporary art scene by imposing Western art practices on local artists.” He argues that these outside pressures change the meaning and aesthetic of the work. Many artists in Cambodia dismiss Chroy’s critique as unfounded—Amrita Performing Arts director Kang Rithisal noted that Cambodian arts have always been influenced by other cultures and by social and economic factors. For example, Cambodian dance has been influenced by the Thai, the French, and the priorities of local leaders throughout its long history (Jackson 2013). GPP works to not only include local participation, but also to represent Cambodia in the aesthetics of the puppets. Traditional puppets in Cambodia are made out of leather, not rattan or bamboo. These local materials appear more rustic, and perhaps “authentic” to expectations for a traditional art, but they are modern creations. For example, Sopheap Pich is a contemporary Cambodian artist, based in Phnom Penh, who has exhibited his sculptural work internationally. His figures are made of rattan, wood, string, and bamboo and often depict elements of the human anatomy or plant life. His work counters the idea that contemporary artists in Southeast Asia “lack identity,” and demonstrates how Southeast Asians strive to bridge local and global identities through their art (Taylor 2011: 8). Artists like Pich engage with an authentic Cambodian identity through his use of “traditional” materials, rather than subject-matter (Wolfarth 2017: 430). Amrita Performing Arts and other artists in Cambodia have followed suit, making art and puppets out of bamboo and rattan. In 2017, the trend reached GPP and that parade featured a human-shaped puppet created entirely out of rattan. Because it was possible to see through the figure, it was not feasible to light the puppet from within. Rather, someone walked in front of the puppet holding a spot light that could shine on the puppet’s face and bounce around the figure. During some parts of the parade, it was dark and then this “authentic” creation faded away and could not be seen.

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Willis comments that perhaps the most important aspect in considering the puppet’s design is whether or not the manipulation is visible to the audience. Certainly, part of the magic of Japanese bunraku puppets depends on the expert work of the three puppeteers controlling the puppet. They are visible, but their skill still makes the puppet appear alive. The effect is all the more astonishing because the evidence of the puppet’s unliveness is fully visible. Watching the puppeteer becomes an important part of watching and appreciating the design of the puppet. In GPP, the operators are visible and thus the puppet as puppet is emphasized. While watching the puppets parade down the street, the audience can see the many people required to manipulate the puppet, many other people walking alongside the puppet, and the others watching the spectacle (Figure 4.5). In this way, the parade of the giant puppets functions like many community parades described by Beckerman: This parade clearly celebrates the past and present, the past glory of suffering, and achievements of the people, the present unity

FIGURE  4.5   The lion puppet parades down the street. Photo by the author.

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and idealism. In that sense the show confirms the established values, and it does so by a means of demonstration. [. . .] The parade displays [each group] to the crowd that lines the street, and through the display unites spectator and the sitter. (1984: 6) Even while watching, it is difficult to discern who is performing and who is watching—everyone watches each other watching the puppets. Everyone watching the GPP is invited to participate in the identity of Cambodia as a nation of progress and development. The foreigners are represented in many of the groups and are also among the leaders of the event. It is clear, watching from the street, that Cambodia still remains very dependent on foreign investment and assistance. The growing independence of the Cambodian artists involved in GPP is not evident from the parade presentation. Cambodians are visually represented by the hundreds of children that walk alongside the puppets they helped make. “In spectacle, performers present themselves as representatives of a larger group or a larger reality” (Beeman 1993:  379). In the GPP, the boundaries between the groups become blurred and the audience and puppeteers experience each other as members of one community.

Movement John Bell asks of the puppet performance, “And if they watch, what do they see and discover from the images created by live puppet theatre?” and responds, “They see great possibilities of thought and action” (2001: 4). Many argue that movement is the single most important signsystem of the puppet—“the puppet is created to be mobile. Only when it moves does it become alive and only in the character of its movement does it acquire what we call behavior” (Obraztsov 1950:  125). The movement of the giant puppets is what allowed them to be understood as puppets rather than parade floats. It is the lack of movement that designates puppets in a museum as art objects, their very use of puppets is taken away because they hang behind a glass case without any human interaction. Movement that points toward “life” is what separates a puppet from any other kind of stage prop.

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How a puppet moves is determined by the puppet’s type. A marionette is operated by strings from above, while a rod puppet is operated by strings and rods from below (Tillis 1992: 135). The Vietnamese water puppet is famous for moving on top of the water; the system of rods and strings that give it articulation are hidden under the water. The size of the puppets in GPP make them difficult to understand as anything other than big, but their movement system is quite similar to that of other rod puppets. The control mechanics are the means by which the puppeteer controls the puppet. For GPP these include the wooden base of the puppet, which may be mounted on a bike or car, which allows the puppet to move down the street. The head is often supported on a larger pole that is carried and moved by one or more strong operators and the legs and arms may be attached to sticks or ropes to give them movement by one or more person. These individuals do not have much opportunity to practice, and how the puppet will move is not actualized until the day of the parade. The puppets are too big; there is nowhere they can practice. The movement of the puppets, therefore, is generally slow and sometimes disconnected. The size of the puppet again adds to the strangeness of the visual spectacle. Unique to GPP is how the puppets move in relation to each other—time creates movement. The puppets perform in a parade; the audience experiences the event as a sequence of high points interspersed among others that are mostly fillers. There are not that many large puppets, so there need to be other events to fill the time in between. If the puppets were too close, the parade would only last a few minutes. It would not be sufficient spectacle or event to draw an audience. It is difficult to find other performances that will complement and add to the spectacle of the giant puppets. GPP has worked in the past few years to increase the spectacle that happens separate from the puppets; for example, bands play music or members of the Phare Circus perform tricks. These elements are interesting and receive cheers from the crowd, but they are not as grand as the giant, moving, lit, puppets. Humans end up looking small and insignificant, no matter what kind of trick they perform in the semidarkness.

Speech/music The puppets in GPP do not speak words or talk in any way. The spectacle, however, is far from silent—loud music or sound effects

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accompany each puppet as it winds its way down the streets. Some of the music is contemporary and international, while some of the other music is local and more traditional in flavor. In his analysis, Tillis does not include the music that accompanies the puppet—as he notes, it is one of many other parts of a performance that might be studied. Music accompanies and enhances the performance, and Tillis feels it is not key. The puppets in GPP do not speak, but are often accompanied with music that complements their movement or character. Within the framework of spectacle, I would argue that the music functions similarly to how Tillis considers speech, and I will analyze it from that point of view. Tillis describes how the immaterial nature of speech is often at odds with the material puppet, because one is a product of breath while the other has no animation on its own. It is not required for a puppet to be able to speak, or for the voice of the puppet to even come from proximity of the puppet itself. In Japanese bunraku, a chanter sits to the side of the stage and gives voice to all the characters of the play in full view of the audience. It is also acceptable for the puppets to use recorded voice—live movement accompanied by artificial sound (1992: 148–50). Even so, music must be considered as a key element of the aesthetics of this puppet performance, because music offers “social experience since the process of music-making and performance reflects a collective cultural and social appreciation as it communicated distinct signifiers of the culture and society in which these musics are produced” (Tan 2012: 27). In this section I look at how speech or sounds of the puppet reinforce the sense of character offered in the material presence and movement, or sometimes how those sounds contradict and challenge the way the audience might view and interpret the puppet character. The style of the puppets really did not represent any kind of local or identifiable puppet. Some of the decorations that were attached to the puppets, cut out of shiny paper, referenced Cambodian motifs. As I pointed out earlier, however, these were barely visible as the puppets performed in the parade. The music and sounds accompanying the parade better represent the intercultural element of the event better than any of the visual aesthetics. The music offers a kind of crossroads, “where foreign cultures, unfamiliar discourses, and the myriad artistic effects of estrangement are jumbled together” (Pavis 1992: 1), which reflects a core principle and problem with Cambodian identity that must overcome a destructive history and foreign influence. The presentation of the

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puppets also reinforces how necessary sound is as an element in not only puppet performance (Tillis 1992:  149) but in Asian performance more broadly (Brandon 1993: 6). Gongs, drums, and other traditional Khmer instruments accompanied the red ant in a pulsating rhythm with a simple tune. The musicians, visible, sat in the back of a truck that followed the ant. They wore matching white shirts and a single light shone down, allowing them to see their musical instruments and enabling the audience to gaze upon them as they played. Even though the music was traditional-sounding in its simplicity, it did not include any of the key string instruments that might have more distinctively indicated it as a Khmer tradition. The combination of gongs and drums could be found anywhere around Southeast Asia. Next, as the bright yellow lion approached, recorded music began to drown out the sounds of the percussion ensemble. This music seemed to come from a speaker located underneath the lion, because it was at its most audible when the lion was directly in front of the crowd. “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight . . .” could be heard as the children walking alongside the lion joined in for the chorus of “ah-wimoweh ah-wimoweh.” Much of the audience also joined along to this happy chant. In Cambodia, lions often appear at the entrances to temples or even palaces. They are the sacred symbol of the Khmer kings and represent strength, and offer protection from evil. The appearance of this lion—more Lion King than ancient Khmer—was not anymore Cambodian than the music, and together they reflected the complex dynamics of local and global aesthetics and ideas that constitute contemporary Khmer identity. The selection of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” for GPP was likely driven by the desire to find something playful and fun for the performers and audience to accompany the puppet traveling down the street. The song choice, however accidental, speaks to relevant discourses about cultural identities and how the international art and art-making might function in creating global identities. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” was originally composed by Zulu songwriter Solomon Linda. He died without ever receiving adequate compensation or recognition for his work. The song has since been used by numerous artists and has come to symbolize a kind of “Africa scored as a noble landscape, peopled by a unified chorus, singing together in a harmonic convergence of tribal cultures”

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(Doyle 2013:  61). Veit Erlmann describes the song’s potential for identity, “Performances such as ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ create a black ecumene of listeners not by delineating crisply separated, racially defined orders of meaning but by focusing attention on the act of communication as such. Such performances are essentially phatic; they do not concern themselves with a meaning but with what goes on when black people converse with one another in certain ways and thereby mark themselves as different” (2004: 81). He is arguing that style is what creates a sense of shared identity, even though he is writing about a specifically black diaspora identity—the use of the song in international popular culture such as Disney’s The Lion King expands the community potential beyond a black identity. When paired with a giant lion puppet, the words of the song become quite literal, but the pleasure found in the song through the group singing of the chorus “ah-wimoweh” offers the potential for shared experience as an audience giving voice to the puppet performance as it travels the street. The music “sounds” like Africa, which reinforces the lion puppet as a fanciful creation that invokes something exotic and familiar at once. Some of the puppets passed by without any specific music to accompany their movement. In contrast to the lively interaction between audience and object that the music invited, the puppets without music seemed rather lifeless. The long green caterpillar moved by with nothing other than the voices of the crowd to offer support. This was one of the most visual puppets, with alternating light and dark green body segments creating a graceful creature. Likewise, the purple-and-blue water buffalo also lacked any specific soundscape. As the soccer players approached, music could again be heard. A  band of drums and horns followed them down the street. The music and the style of the band was similar to one in any American parade, but several gongs added into the mix gave the group a more discernible Southeast Asian flair. The band members were a group of expats wearing matching, bright orange shirts. Finally, a bouncy sound, like that of a Jew’s harp, accompanied the frog, and another band walked close to the duck. Each year, the music and sounds used in the parade are different. The year 2017 was distinctive because the parade collaborated with several musicians to produce music for the parade. One local artist, Kong Nay, is considered a kind of national treasure. He plays the chapai, or the Cambodian guitar. He survived the Khmer Rouge

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by entertaining the soldiers with his music and now performs internationally but also works to preserve and revive the tradition. The parade not only featured his music, but a large puppet was made of him playing the guitar. The musician Mute Speaker, originally from the UK, fell in love with Cambodian culture and music after taking a trip there. His current work mixes Cambodian rock and traditional music into his own unique style. The 2017 official GPP video uses the soundtrack of his music to accompany the images of the parade. The music, like the bodies of the puppets, does not favor one kind of cultural representation over another. The puppets, bodies of the puppeteers, and live and recorded sound all contribute to creating a participatory public. Not all types of puppet performance contain the potential for community involvement in the process and production as GPP. Cochlin imagines a space where Cambodian artists and voices will someday eclipse the foreign aid and guidance on which both GPP and the country currently depend. The aesthetics of the puppets and music together reflect and reinforce that goal. Next, I will look at how the spaces of Siem Reap, which the puppets travel, contribute to constructing these complex identities.

Negotiating city spaces The route of the parade begins in an area dominated by tourists and expats, goes down the river past hundreds of local Cambodians, and ends in the Royal Independence Garden across from the famous Raffles Hotel. The space of the parade is part of its spectacle; the puppets and the road they travel are interdependent. Similarly, Beckerman acknowledges the importance of space to the efficacy of the fireworks display—“Equally important is the arena of the display: a river, a harbor, a park—each supplying a vast stage that expands and contracts as the sparks come and go. The sensation is as much spatial as it is visual; we experience the blasts of fire kinesthetically, caught up in the rhythm of bursting shells as we anticipate and respond to the successive illuminations” (1984: 4–5). Likewise, the brightly lit streets are dimmed in order to give prominence to the illumination within the puppets. The route of the parade and the different spaces it inhabits reflects how the Giant Puppet Project enters into larger conversations of Cambodian identity.

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Siem Reap, which is sometimes translated to mean “Thailand (Siam) defeated,” but could also mean “the brilliance of Siam,” developed out of the Cambodian government’s desire to capitalize on Angkor as an economically rewarding tourist site. When the French first (re)discovered Angkor in 1902, Siem Reap was a small village. It grew into a town with facilities for tourists during the French occupation—the Grand Hotel d’Angkor was built in 1929, and it symbolized the beginning of a thriving international tourist scene. To visit Angkor, one had to travel through Siem Reap. In the 1990s, most of the country was in ruin; Cambodia was rebuilding from not only the Khmer Rouge, but also numerous years of armed conflict and relative isolation. Economic growth was an urgent matter that was also intertwined with cultural rejuvenation. Angkor was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1992, opening up the door of possibility and a need for developing Siem Reap to handle the now over several million tourists who visit the area each year. To give a sense of the growth, between 1998 and 2004 the number of hotels in Siem Reap increased from 8 to 138, guesthouses from 20 to 230, and the number of tour guides from 95 to 3,572 (Mao et al. 2014: 674). Like Angkor, Siem Reap has been subject to numerous international influences and interests. Adele Esposito traces the different ways various “urban imaginations” have interacted with the construction of the city space. In 1993, a number of international agencies partnered with local Cambodian institutions to form the International Coordination Committee for Safeguarding the Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (ICC). Money, advice, and technical assistance were given by consultants from over sixteen countries. But ultimately most of these projects were doomed to failure: There are multiple reasons behind the failure of such projects. The first is that they were designed with little or no help by Cambodian officials and professionals. The second is that they were submitted to different Cambodian authorities and carried out by different teams of consultants who did not interact well with each other. The third reason is that urban planning was seen as a useful tool for conducting diplomatic relations with international donors. In addition, this situation quickly translated into a number of negotiations with the private sector. (Esposito 2014: 144–5)

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Siem Reap struggles to balance its different populations—local Khmer, numerous expats, and many tourists. Each group has different expectations and needs in the once small town. The first wave of advisors, brought in after Angkor was declared a World Heritage Site, focused on how to best bring about urban development without losing the charm of the village. Subsequent plans sought to reclaim the village, and defined Siem Reap as a “vegetal town”—that is, it combined “built forms, vegetation, and hydraulic structures partially inherited from the Angkorian period”—this resonated with the way French travelers wrote about the place at the beginning of the twentieth century (Esposito 2014: 146–7). Throughout, the developers wished to preserve the original harmony that existed between nature and urban development. Foreign developers focused on retaining Siem Reap’s charm and connection to tradition in Khmer culture and village life. Local citizens, however, clamored for new buildings and modern housing that they felt would be better suited to the economic potential of the area. The city was divided into complex zones according to use and functionality superseded a desire to preserve heritage. “Siem Reap’s identity, as it has been perceived by outside planners, seems therefore, split between the town’s rural origins of a big village and its development as an international tourist hub” (Esposito 2014: 151). The parade was envisioned as a public space for Cambodian children, “to celebrate their creative achievements,” explained Cochlin. The movement of the giant forms surrounded by hundreds of children is just as important to the puppet’s meaning as their design and creation. A  leader of one of the participating NGOs, Sally Hetherington from Hope and Healing Association, explained that the workshops gave the children more confidence in their own creative abilities. The opportunity to show off their creations as they walk down the street—getting attention and dancing proudly—is important to the children and the staff. The route of the parade takes the children and puppets through the parts of the city primarily developed for tourists—pub street, the Old Market, along the river, and into the beautiful Royal Independence Garden. This is far away from the places locals tend to congregate to relax such as Road 60. Does the route of the parade reinforce the complicated juxtaposition between foreign and local interests and ideals or

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does it allow a reclamation of Khmer identity and space through spectacle? In his study of fiestas in Mexico, another kind of cultural spectacle, Stanley Brandes determines that fiestas operate as a system of social control through the mechanisms of power and persuasion. Power is consciously manipulative and controlling—it belongs to civic systems such as church or state. The GPP must negotiate these systems for gaining permissions and access to hold the parade and occupy the public spaces of streets and park, even though power in Southeast Asia is acknowledged to operate somewhat differently than Western conceptions of power that emphasize clear social control. Power is indirect in Southeast Asia.7 Persuasion “means the totality of informal pressures and instructive procedures that lead people to conduct their lives with regard to particular standards” (Brandes 1988: 5). A large-scale public event like a fiesta or puppet parade offers a condensed version, within a set time and space, of societal values and expectations. Parts of the event may seem to ridicule, or subvert, the social order, but as I have written elsewhere, these actions or clowning often serve to reinforce social hierarchy rather than undo it (Goodlander 2016: 57–9). The GPP does not typically use humor; rather, it applies spectacle “not merely to create illusion, but to give illusion so palpable a presence that we are filled with wonder at what people can accomplish” (Beckerman 1984: 12). The audience reacts with laughter out of delight rather than laughing because something is comic. The puppets, children, music, and other elements foster a sense of wonder that is reinforced by the physical environment. Because it uses spectacle in a different way, as compared to Brendes’s fiesta (Brandes 1988) or other similar events, the GPP opens up a space that might begin to change the structures of persuasion that the many foreign aid organizations and people have in Siem Reap. The streets the parade travels are spots frequented by tourists and expats, not by local Cambodians. This reflects differences in purpose and design, economic differences, and a kind of social hierarchy. Even though Pub Street, the Old Market, and the park are results of efforts to preserve heritage, they do not really belong to the people whose heritage is being preserved. They are spaces for visitors with money and free time. The separation between local people and foreign aid workers and tourists reflects a larger picture of how the tremendous amount of aid to Cambodia has affected the country. Since the 1990s, Cambodia

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has been ranked among “one of the most aid-dependent countries in the world” (Ear 2007: 69). This kind of dependence on aid has been noted to actually deter development and can be quite detrimental to a country’s population (Boone 1996). Foreign aid and support has likewise proven to be quite limiting to the development of a selfsufficient performing arts sector in Cambodia as well (Diamond 2003: 148). The GPP, however, consciously works against some of these dependences to create a dynamic of interdependence for now, which may become a self-sufficient reflection of Cambodian culture and identity in Siem Reap. Cambodia, as a nation, worries about its own sense of identity and heritage. In 2000, a book published in Khmer on Cambodian identity was published with a forward written by the Prime Minister Hun Sen; it described five key elements comprising the ideal Cambodian: land, history, culture and civilization, state and governance, and society (from the review, Keo 2000). In 2005, the Cambodian foreign minister, Hor Namhong, lamented: “It is my belief that this generalized amnesia and loss of knowledge about its cultural heritage has undermined all attempts to rebuild Cambodian society” (Grantross 2007). The GPP might not be a kind of traditional performance like dance or the large shadow puppetry, but it reflects and engages with a sense of rural and village knowledge, and creates opportunities for collaboration among Cambodian artists and children under the guidance of foreigners dedicated to creating an independent, self-sustaining project that brings together foreigners and Cambodians in the streets of the city. As Hobsbawm and Ranger point out, tradition is something that comes out of moments of conflict to create a sense of stability and identity (1983:  12). Likewise, the authors Tim Winter and Leakthina Chau-Pech Ollier point out that the contemporary Cambodian identity is a constant negotiation between tradition, modernity, tourism, and diaspora (2006: 5–8). Perhaps a key after-effect of Pol Pot’s attempt to wipe out Cambodian culture and bring the nation back to year zero has been the invitation of global and local forces to work together to create that Cambodian identity. As Terrence Chong writes in his examination on globalization and culture in Southeast Asia, global influence does not go just one way. Rarely is the global narrative about one culture dominating another, but rather it is a rich integration of a myriad of influences. Global culture has

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consequences—the arts transmit and reflect cultural beliefs and can also change those beliefs. Globalization demonstrates receptivity, that is, “the desire to receive non-domestic ideas, values, and aesthetics.” And finally, Chong determines there is no such thing as a single, dominant, and dominating global culture, but rather many cultures forging their own beliefs, aesthetics, ideals, and identities through a variety of influences coming from both outside and inside a culture or society (2008: 337–8). Perhaps I might be seen as preferring an optimistic view, but I believe GPP offers the kind of artistic and social space needed for contemporary Cambodians to navigate the many different influences on their identity.

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Considering Nature in Relation to Urban Identities The countries in the region of Southeast Asia are not even a century old, and each country has many social, environmental, and political problems to address. Identity in Southeast Asia is often considered a concern for the modern era. These issues depend upon a particular notion of modernization—in Southeast Asia, “the modernization of societies depends on their ability to create new institutions, exploit advanced technologies, master their environment, and adapt their patterns of behavior for common goals” (Chong 2005:  13). This chapter will examine a number of examples in order to explore how ideas of modernity are expressed in performance. The focus of this book is on city spaces, but in Southeast Asia the desa or village remains central to how Southeast Asians perceive themselves. For many Southeast Asians, the village represents an ideal that the city ought to seek. In 1982, Indonesian architect Rivai Gaos described the desa—village—in Indonesia: Let’s imagine we go back to the “desa.” We will be welcomed not only by the small bridge made of coconut trees, but also by pieces of rock in the river which seem to enthusiastically appear on the surface to greet us. Every house we passed seems to invite us to sit and rest as their open verandah. No thorny gates and aggressive dogs could be found. Not only are we greeted by people, but also by the stone that supports the houses. They are all components

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of life that makes us feel alive. We feel acknowledged as part of the big family. (Qtd. in Kusno 2002: 125) Gaos believed that the disconnected, chaotic city could be overcome by following the principles of the desa, rather than copying Western urban development trends. Gaos’s attitude is reflected in the glorification of the countryside and nature within the performances I will examine. These performances demonstrate that urban identity often depends on an ideal of village life in order to connect to nation and region. “Specific modes of contemporary modernity in Burma [and the rest of Southeast Asia] are channeled through long-standing relations between villages and towns” (Skidmore 2005: 9). In this chapter I  argue that ideas of tradition and community expressed in the ideal of the village, or rural life, are key for understanding performances that articulate different values of modernity in Southeast Asia.

Nature and the city in Laos PDR A cow, a monk, a city with cars, pollution, and a man with a coconut shell mask trying to say “hello” in ten national languages of Southeast Asia were all part of the packed ten-minute performance by the Vulnerable Youth Development Association (VYDA) puppet group.1 The performance was created specifically for the ASEAN Puppetry Festival at the National Puppet Theatre in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2017, but expressed themes and aesthetics typical of this company’s work. VYDA was the brainchild of Phannaly Thepphavongsa, a former counselor at the Ministry of Lao Education. She desired a place to empower Lao youth through education, creativity, and the arts. Puppetry, performed by the puppet branch of VYDA called Jampalao, has become one of the organization’s main conduits for social change. Their performances focus on issues such as hygiene, drugs, education, and protecting the environment. The story, puppets, and ideas in their productions may seem simplistic and prescriptive. Catherine Diamond complains that most environmentally aware theatre performances in Southeast Asia are “didactic plays for children and stage protest plays about cases of destructive action and environmental injustice.” She continues:

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Theatre troupes generally do not embark on new works with a focus on the natural world unless they are commissioned to do so or are impacted directly by an environmentally damaging policy. Some productions have tackled larger issues, such as climate change, but in an abstract manner that puts them beyond the presenters’ or spectators’ ability to do much about them. Moreover, since Southeast Asian theatre tends to be melodramatic with conflict presented in terms of good and evil forces, environmental issues are often over simplified rather than examined in all their inconvenient complexity. If there is a problem, someone must be to blame, and audiences do not want to hear that it is they, themselves. (Diamond 2014: 576) Certainly, I am not attempting to argue that this short production by VYDA was sophisticated theatre, but it was quite charming. However, considering the puppet play within the complex systems of Southeast Asian modernity and its relationship to the village may suggest the play is more effective than Diamond might initially  allow. The play began with three women representing different generations. There was a young girl, a middle-aged woman, and an old, withered grandmother. The characters were all hand puppets made of fabric, performed behind a screen serving to hide the manipulators from the sight of the audience. The puppets were a combination of Lao traditional puppetry, or epok puppets, and a simplified version of Jim Henson’s Muppets. Epok are a type of three-dimensional rod/doll puppetry that has almost disappeared in Laos PDR. Epok performances were supported by the royal court and only watched by elite members of society. The year 1975 marked the end of the last royal court in Luang Prabang and, with it, the support for epok puppetry disappeared. Today few artists remain who remember the art form, but since the declaration of Luang Prabang as an UNESCO World Heritage Centre in 1995, there has been a resurgence of interest in Laos PDR arts and culture, including puppetry. Even so, development of the art form has been slow and difficult (Amphonephong 2015). In spite of its royal heritage, epok’s current practice often reflects ideals of the folk within Lao identity. In the opening scene, the three women puppets were resting outside, under a big shady tree. A  young monk in saffron robes happened by, and each of the three women gave him alms and received his blessing. In this manner, a connection was established

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between religion, nature, and living a moral life. The three women moved happily around the stage and finally exited. The next scene showed a man wearing baggy pants, a trench coat, and a mask made out of a coconut shell with big round eyes sitting at the top. The man walked hunched over, and the mask made him appear also as a kind of puppet, rather than a natural living thing. He began by saying “sawatdee,” or hello in Lao language. He then said “hello” several times and waved at the audience full of children and families who responded “hello,” and waved back. The odd man then continued through the different languages of all ten countries of ASEAN.2 The audience cheered and laughed when he got to “xin chao,” the greeting in Vietnamese. The different greetings served to connect Vietnam (the host of the performance) to the other countries in ASEAN through the kinetic experience of sharing language. The man with the mask welcomed the audience into a community of all ten countries.

FIGURE  5.1   The puppets from VYDA, Laos PDR, in a scene about pollution in the city. Photo by the author.

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As the man exited the stage, the nature scene was transformed into a city, with the addition of skyscrapers and buildings. One car raced by, and soon more and more cars filled the stage. People came out and tossed their trash around on the ground in front of the stage. A  plastic bag blew by and was joined by other objects like tissues and paper, which were cluttering the stage. The music changed into a haunting melody and the man reentered. This time, however, instead of a cheerful greeting he was saddened by what he saw. He looked plaintively at the audience and gestured with his arms open as if to say, “What happened?” or “What can we do?” The puppet of the young woman also entered and reacted sadly to the mess by looking around and slowly shaking her head. Both she and the man exchanged hopeless looks and gestures, but then she took charge and began to pick up the papers and other trash. As the man exited, other puppet characters came on to help clean the city of garbage. The women exited and came back holding a tree branch, with another male puppet who had a hoe; the puppets worked together in order to plant the tree. The play ended with all of the puppets coming together to sway to the chorus of the “One ASEAN” anthem, titled “The ASEAN Way”: Raise our flag high, sky high Embrace the pride in our heart ASEAN we are bonded as one Look-in out to the world For peace, our goal from the very start And prosperity to last. We dare to dream we care to share. Together for ASEAN We dare to dream, We care to share for it’s the way of ASEAN.3 The short puppet play reveals several key issues in considering the relationship between nature and city in Southeast Asia. For most, including its own citizens, Laos PDR is viewed as a nation on the periphery. Its people, government, and natural resources are viewed as limited and underdeveloped. The story of the play not only offers the Lao people a hopeful message in the battle against environmental destruction, but reading the play through an

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understanding of natural and city spaces in Laos PDR reveals a more complex engagement with identity and agency. Southeast Asian governments often see forested areas as marginal because of their small populations and little political clout. In contrast, people in Laos PDR see the forest as central to their identity and success. Sociologist Sarinda Singh describes that the “power of the state and the natural potency of the wild forest” are linked; “they are fundamentally similar in their expression of the possibilities and desires for social improvement” (Singh 2012: 15). For the Lao people, the forest—trees and nature—hold great significance as part of their identity. Even though it is small, Vientiane has a long history; it was founded in, or before, the thirteenth century.4 In the play, the city is portrayed as a major urban center with skyscrapers, traffic, and many people. Vientiane, in contrast, is described as quaint and quiet, and is often left out of discussions considering urban development in Southeast Asia (Askew, Logan, and Long 2007:  4–5). Travel websites like www.visit-Laos.com and Lonely Planet emphasize how laid back and sleepy the river-town is—a relaxing place to vacation. This contrast between the actual small city and the dramatized metropolis in the puppet show suggests two different conceptions of Vientiane. One is that the artists are not only re-creating discourses about their capital city, and hometown, but are also actively countering discourses that dismiss Laos PDR as poor, rural, and not worthy of study, through their portrayal of the city as big and thriving. Second, perhaps the performance might serve as a warning—in the twenty-first century, the Lao government has worked to develop Vientiane as a modern city with better infrastructure to support its population. If this development is not held in check, however, some worry that Vientiane as a site of Lao heritage and identity will be erased (Askew, Logan, and Long 2007: 202–3). Laos PDR has tight social and political controls on the freedom of speech, but the play can also be read as making sly political commentary. Local citizens are hesitant to openly criticize the government or authorities for fear of retaliation. Therefore, any kind of political speech must be carefully veiled (Singh 2012: 154). If the government, and the success of that government, is determined by its ability to handle natural resources and development, what happens when things go awry as depicted in the play? The pollution

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and garbage in the play suggest resources are not being managed well by the government. The solution is that individual people must then step-up and take care of the environment themselves. In the play, it is the citizens of the countryside and of the city who are shown taking initiative and changing things for the better. They clean up and plant trees. The trees are especially significant because they can be understood as closely linked to both identity and the government in Laos PDR. The end of the play shows Laos PDR as a leader rather than one dependent on others for aid. The lyrics of the ASEAN anthem express hope for a better future through working together within the larger regional community. The song calls for members of ASEAN to work together for peace, security, and prosperity and come together as one. The performance, created by VYDA, was made to represent Laos PDR, but the inclusion of the ASEAN anthem also points to a strong desire to connect to the development happening in the rest of the region. This is not atypical of countries in Southeast Asia. T.  Chong declares, “Southeast Asia is one of the most out-ward looking regions of the world” (2005: 66). Engagement with other countries, especially neighboring ones, is a key feature of Southeast Asian identity. VYDA’s performance not only illustrates a concern for the environment, but it also offers more sophisticated insight into the relationship between nature and Lao identity and the country’s vision for the future.

Middle-class identities: Kotabaru, Bandung, in Indonesia In 2014 I was sitting on the grass watching a performance of Balinese topeng, or masked dance-drama. The performer, I Made Sidia, is a master performer from Bali, who is also known for his work as a dalang, or puppet master. The crowd was gathered around, also sitting on the grass or matts, laughing and enjoying the antics of Sidia. We were not watching, however, in a village or at a temple festival in Bali—the usual location for a Balinese topeng. This performance was located at Kotabaru Parahyangan, a residential and lifestyle development just outside of the city of Bandung, Indonesia, on the island of Java. Sidia’s topeng performance was

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one of many mask and puppet events occurring over two days for the Gunungan International Mask and Puppet Festival. The Kotabaru Parahyangan is one of several similar developments on the outskirts of Bandung. Kotabaru Parahyangan (or Kotabaru for short) was conceived of in 2004 by the Lyman Group as a modern development that would combine residential space, schools, commercial development, and civic green space. At 33,000 acres, this development is the largest of its kind in the area. The developers converted local rice fields in order to create a new urban oasis—complete with international schools, restaurants, a hotel, hospital, residential neighborhoods, and other spaces for business, entertainment, and living. Strategically located, Kotabaru sits close to Bandung, but is still convenient to Jakarta. The mission of Kotabaru articulates the idea of civic empowerment based within local and global identities achieved through education. Descriptions of the facilities within the Kotabaru stress how the space and its residents are international and created in compliance with “global standards”—the design was based on a planned neighborhood located in California. Bandung is only about 76 miles from Jakarta, and has served the nation of Indonesia through its history as a cultural hub and gateway for Westerners. Even early in the twentieth century, cafes, theatres, and hotels were so numerous it earned the city the nickname Paris van Java (Aritenang 2013:  140–1). In 2004, an expressway was built linking Bandung with the capital, and since then Bandung has seen an influx on the weekend as residents from Jakarta flock to the city to shop and take advantage of Bandung’s many cultural and creative industries. The number of people and cars on the weekends means that restaurants and malls are crowded and traffic is horrible. A 2014 article in the Jakarta Post featured many complaints by residents of the traffic and trash in the city of Bandung—they felt it was no longer possible to walk around the city because of the large number of vendors crowding the sidewalks (Dipa 2014). People needed a place to live that would allow them to enjoy the convenience of Bandung without the hassle. The moto of Kotabaru is “kota mandiri berwawasan pendidikan,” or “the city of independent-minded education,” and the yearly Gunungan International Mask and Puppet Festival is one of many activities and events designed to further that mission. The festival features exhibits, performances, academic discussions, interactive

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activities, and a marketplace with masks, puppets, and related craft items for sale. International performers and participants are often featured in the marketing and realization of the event. As the location of the 2014 Gunungan International Mask and Puppet Festival, Kotabaru created a productive spatial (and ideological) dialogue with the festival’s mission of preserving the traditional culture of Indonesia, especially masks and puppetry, in order to promote them as global art forms while also building a more interested and educated local audience. The stated purpose of the festival is to “celebrate Indonesia’s rich and diverse wayang (puppet) and mask traditions in the context of similar traditions worldwide.”5 The festival space demonstrated how the developers sought to recreate the village atmosphere and sense of community within the built environment. The developers and producers consciously created a village-like atmosphere to offer a space for contemporary theatre artists to develop new methods and stories that interact with tradition, in order to articulate these new values. Education, public space, local and global performances, and a desire to connect to the environment are articulated in the spaces and performances at Kotabaru. The festival supports a discourse of the arts as supporting middle-class values for a contemporary Indonesia through its space, organization, or practices, and actual content and style of the performances. Ariel Heryanto applies the following useful definition to the Indonesian middle-class: “What all variants of the [Indonesian] middle classes share in common (without which they cannot be designated as middle classes at all) are their orientation towards any combination of these:  urban residence; modern occupations and education; and cultural tastes, which manifest most vividly, but not exclusively in consumer lifestyles” (Heryanto 2013:  28). The definition is not so much based on economics or class, but rather on a person’s social and cultural position in society; the term “intellectual” is often used interchangeably with middle class (Heryanto 2013: 30). The Mask and Puppet Festival at Kotabaru could be argued to reflect and reinforce these middleclass values and attributes as central to Indonesian identity. Middle-class identity in Indonesia negotiates the relationships between tradition and modernity. In Indonesia, modernity, or a thing understood as moderen is, to quote R.  Anderson Sutton, a “thing, a process, a style, or a condition that is not only new,

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but is readily perceivable as distinct from what is traditional, and, almost always, introduced from elsewhere (very often directly or indirectly from the West)” (Sutton 2016:  2). The term moderen, which is the Indonesian take on modern, emphasizes its distinction from Western modernity. Indonesian moderen promotes ideas of development (pembangunan) and progress (kemajuan) as key. Within Indonesia the struggle is how to be moderen without discarding key traditions that form the basis of national and personal identity—and this balancing act can be seem throughout the festival as the performances and the spaces they inhabit work to balance development and nature One of the featured performances happened in the evening of the first day of the festival. I Made Sidia presented a performance of Balinese wayang kulit, which combined traditional elements with multiple technological innovations. Wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry, is considered one of the oldest and most important traditional performances in Bali. Flat, two-dimensional puppets made out of leather are manipulated against a screen by a single puppeteer to tell stories from the Mahabharata, Ramayana, or other Balinese myths and histories. These performances are generally given as an integral part of a ceremony or ritual, but wayang kulit is also a form of entertainment. The dalang, or puppeteer, is the central figure in this performance genre and is revered as a teacher and spiritual leader. The dalang controls all aspects of a wayang kulit performance as playwright, actor, director, orchestra conductor, musician, singer, producer, and priest. The introduction announcement before Sidia’s performance reminded the audience that wayang tradisional was a key part of Indonesian culture, and that Sidia was an expert performer of not only wayang but also topeng and gamelan, further enhancing his status as a “traditional” artist. It may not initially seem that a performance combining electronic music, projections, and other stage effects might be understood as tradition. In order to understand Sidia’s performance as tradition, the framework of kawi dalang refers to the creativity inherent in all performances of Balinese wayang kulit ought to be applied. I Nyoman Sedana and Leon Rubin explain that dalang work within three guiding principles—character, genre (or the different rules, conventions, and structures within a wayang performance), and story. A dalang might innovate within one of the elements, but the

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framework of the other two principles would keep the performance recognizable as tradition. If a dalang strays too far, his performance might be criticized (Rubin and Sedana 2007: 25–7). I will use these three elements as a way to analyze Sidia’s performance as a tradition in conversation with modernity. Balinese wayang typically begins with a ritual to welcome the gods and to invoke the world of the performance. These parts of the performance are often performed without much of an audience, but Sidia performed a shortened version as the opening for his show.6 The performance began with the sound of wind blowing and music played on a synthesizer and not the traditional gamelan. Some of the music in the performance was played live onstage in front of the audience, but the wind and music were recorded. Sidia and two of the other performers/musicians performed a wordless chant. These performers were in front of a screen that showed clouds racing past, which, together with the raised arms of the players, cast an eerie shadow. Sidia stood and slowly crossed downstage carrying a small Balinese offering and incense and proceeded to perform a version of the usual blessing that begins a Balinese wayang kulit performance. Next he stepped center stage and picked up the kayonan puppet— the kayonan is a large lead-shaped puppet that is used to call the world of the play into being by dancing across the screen. Typically the audiences in Bali watch the performance from the shadow side of the screen—so the dalang is an invisible presence. While Sidia held the kayonan aloft, he was lit in a spotlight, emphasizing his role in the performance (Figure  5.2). It might be possible to say that Sidia became a character in his own play, but I think it is more convincing to think of Sidia inserting himself into the conventions or genre of a wayang kulit performance. His body visibly marked that his individual artistry was bringing the world of the puppets to life, compared to the kayonan alone, which suggests an ancient connection to past performances and other artists who share this opening to the play. Sidia then, as per usual in a wayang kulit performance, began the introduction to the story in Kawi, an ancient Javanese court language—but at the end he switched to Indonesian and introduced the characters of Krishna and Yudistira who were meeting to discuss the ongoing war. This pointed to the location for the performance— he was not in Bali performing for a Balinese audience, but in an urban space shared by Indonesians from around the archipelago.

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FIGURE 5.2   I Made Sidia performs at the Kotabaru, Bandung. Photo by the author.

The use of Indonesian language shifts the identity of wayang tradition from a Balinese artform to a national one. Sidia then performed the opening dialogue between Krishna and Yudistira, again in full view of the audience, with the shadows of the puppets cast behind him visually reinforcing the dalang as both character and creator of this play. As the kayonan was danced across the screen another time, a large screen in front of the performers, including Sidia, was raised, blocking them from view. Now the kayonan shadow danced without Sidia’s body also visible, as a spinning globe was projected on to the screen. The visual imagery recalled visions of the Earth from outer space, suggesting that the individual creativity of an artist was replaced by an image of globalization and progress. The kayonan overlaid the Earth and reminded the audience that this tradisional wayang still had a place even in a world where man could travel to the moon and look down on our planet. The story, characters, and languages used continued to juxtapose tradition and modernity in a variety of ways. Against a fantasy

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background of Bali, the puppets of Twalen and Merdah—the two key panasar, or clown/servant characters of the Pandawa brothers— enter. These characters acknowledged that the audience was not likely Balinese not only by speaking Indonesian (and sometimes English) but also by starting with introductions of who they are. Twalen and Merdah are key figures in any wayang kulit, this fatherand-son duo narrate the story, translate the Kawi of the other characters, and share wisdom and comedy with the audience. When Yudistira entered to speak to the clowns, he was no longer a small puppet, but an actor wearing a mask to give him the appearance of a puppet. The imagery became more complex when Bima was called onto the stage and he was portrayed by a puppet. By using both puppets and humans together in the scene, Sidia mixed international influence with tradition. The innovations demonstrate how tradition, one of the foundations of Indonesian identity, constantly changes as a result of global influences. The style of an actor performing like a puppet was developed by American Larry Reed who has studied in Bali and has a company, Shadowlight, based in California. Many Balinese artists, including Sidia, have collaborated with Reed and have borrowed from his style. The idea of tradition gives both Reed and Sidia the credibility of performers. They borrow from each other’s ideas, complicating the notion of tradition as something timeless and stable, compared to innovation as new and belonging to the modern individual. Sidia did not credit Reed’s ideas, just as Reed likely does not credit his teachers when he uses wayang kulit in performance, nor would Sidia expect to be acknowledged. Their work together demonstrates the fluid relationship of tradition and global modernity within Indonesian identity. Sidia’s performance used elements of nature to reinforce desirable aspects of Indonesian culture. In the story, the Pandawa brothers were hiding in the woods from their cousins the Korawa brothers. The people wanted Yudistira to be king (and this was enacted with all of the members of the gamelan ensemble cheering for Yudistira to become king). Bima had a dream, and warned his brothers about a dangerous fire that was going to come and destroy the forest. To complement the action of the story, the next scene showed rice farmers enacting, and discussing, the ideal of gotong royong, or working together—a key value often expressed within Indonesian identity. Animals frolicked in the rice field around the

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farmers, depicting an idealized picture of rural life for an audience of city dwellers who probably do not know firsthand any of the difficulties or hardships of working in a rice field. The past and the rural became glorified together; the wayang performance enacted this past for the urban audience. The dialogue in the scene described people who might be poor in terms of money but were rich in terms of culture. The rhetoric regarding the beauty of nature and advocating for a simple, more primitive life intensified when the screen lost its beautiful projection of rice fields and reverted to a blank screen, with only the outline of shadow puppet trees for scenery. The mise-en-scène of the wayang became more traditional at that moment to perhaps visually invoke nostalgia for a more traditional time. The rest of the performance mixed language, myth, and special effects to continue creating a complicated dialogue of tradition interacting with modernity through idealized nature and culture. The idea of heritage was present in showcasing Balinese wayang for non-Balinese audience—the story, characters, and genre were framed to have universal appeal and value even outside their specific context. This romantic notion of tradition and nature was thus linked to Indonesian identity. Even though the experience of the audience was quite remote from life as portrayed in the puppet play, the audience could recognize this as an important part of Indonesian culture and as part of their identity and values. The space of Kotabaru used for the festival reinforced the notions of nature and identity that Sidia expressed in his performance. The performances took place in three main venues within the commercial and entertainment district of Kotabaru. The main stage or bale (often the gathering place within a home or village in Bali or other parts of Indonesia) was a large cement structure with stairs leading down to a plaza that often served as an extension from the raised stage. Around the stage were tables with umbrellas and grassy areas. This was the space used for performances that often freely combined elements of tradition and modernity. It was also the stage used for two special performances in remembrance of Slamet Gundono and Asep Sunandar Sunarya. These two important dalang were from the area and represented local Sundanese identities.7 Another stage was a built raised platform in the middle of a green space. This is the space where I  saw Sidia perform topeng. The audience would sit on the ground on mats, complementing the

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already more traditional feel of the space. Most of the performances here were more traditional, or at least truer to their genre. The final performance space was inside a building being used as the exhibit hall. The hall had displays of masks from around Indonesia and even other parts of the world as a mini museum; another section had contemporary art and crafts for sale, with an artist working in the far corner. The stage in the hall was set up to one side, away from the displays, and was used primarily for the “talk shows” and some performances. Each of these three spaces had a particular role to play and reinforced the performance as traditional or modern. Because only rarely did performance times overlap, each space was meant for the performance and not for the size of audience it might draw (because theoretically the entire audience could see every performance). Lineu Castello writes about theme parks built in the center of urban environments. Even though she writes about a different phenomenon, the terms she uses are helpful for understanding how the Gunungan festival employed tradition. She argues that the architects of these places “edit tradition,” that is, “they reinforce tradition, by using it to recreate place,” while also “they dissolve traditions by introducing into local environments new symbols characteristic of globalization” (2000: 54). These efforts result in a kind of placeless tradition, where meaning is evoked and curated by combining traditional elements in comfortable, built environments. Kotabaru invokes nature and traditional elements of different kinds of Indonesian homes and village life while catering to a global audience. It markets tradition and rural life as accessible and easy to an audience seeking an authentic experience and community. The Kotabaru, Bandung, together with the festival, demonstrates the kinds of meaning these terms and ideas have for Indonesia at the present moment and into the future. During the periods right after revolution and the New Order, the concepts of tradition and modernity contained specific meanings and values for citizens of Indonesia. Since reformasi, this mindset has had to take on new meanings for a democratic and increasingly developed and prosperous Indonesia. Local arts and languages have become part of the school curriculum and national culture celebrates diversities and regional autonomy like never before. An interesting disruption in environment- and performanceshaped tradition and modernity within the space occurred when a

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sudden rainstorm moved a ritual performance of topeng Ciribon by Aerly Rasinah and her troupe into the exhibit space. Rather than performing the ritual of inducting a newborn into the tradition of topeng outside, the performers did it inside the modern exhibit hall. The ritual and the performance that followed was magical— beautiful, funny, and intense. Performers and audience huddled together to witness the induction ceremony. I  often imagine tradition, especially traditional rituals, as requiring a certain kind of holy, or at least outdoor, space. The modern gallery with its bright fluorescent lights was a far cry from what I would have imagined as ideal. The accidental change of venue demonstrated the power that traditions maintain even in contemporary society and even in contemporary spaces.

Shifting identities: Vietnamese water puppetry Inside Nha Ht Ma Roi Vietnam, or the National Puppet Theatre of Vietnam,8 there is a theatre with a large pool, designed to look like one of the ponds near a pagoda from a nearby village. Daily, there is at least one performance of mua roi nuoc, or water puppetry. These wooden puppets appear to dance on the surface of the water to portray fire-breathing dragons, dancing girls, or a villager fishing from a boat. Live music—a singer accompanied by traditional Vietnamese string, percussion, and wind instruments—accompanies the performance. The theatre has two such “water stages,” one inside and a larger one outdoors, to accommodate different weather conditions. The National Puppet Theatre also produces a number of productions using non-water puppets, or “dry puppetry,” several times a year. Both types of productions often tour around Vietnam and internationally. Descriptions of the water puppet theatre idealize it as an expression of idyllic village life that resonates with Vietnamese identity. Margo Jones, in her dissertation on Vietnamese water puppets, describes the traditional village performance: “The audience sees itself in the puppet figures, sharing the stage with heroes and mythological creatures. The dimensions of the village pond thus expand chronologically and spatially to encompass the

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history, imaginative life, and everyday activities of the Vietnamese” (1996:  86). Kathy Foley, focusing on the two main companies in Hanoi, argues that Vietnamese water puppets began as a village art, but are now used by the Vietnamese government as an elite expression of identity, which includes an essentialized idealization of the village by urban dwellers. Her insightful argument traces how the folk or village is valued within Communist ideologies, and that the productions at the National Theatre “can be seen within a communist-socialist context of professionalization and the extension of folk arts, framed by pedagogical and political agendas of the state” (2001: 140). Even today, “they perform the vignettes of everyday life that remind their audience of their very own village, always the best place on earth in which to live” (Goodman 2005: 204). These descriptions, which closely connect water puppetry to village life, contrast greatly with the location of the National Puppet Theatre in the middle of the busy streets of Hanoi. The theatre is located on Truong Chinh Street, a congested road of over eight lanes of busy traffic, which is lined with many shops and restaurants. The area feels quite industrial, in contrast to the quaint, yet still busy, streets of the Hoan Kiem, or Old Quarter, where the other main water puppet company, Thang Long, performs. That theatre is located in the popular area around Ho Hoan Kiem Lake, which is closed to motor traffic on the weekends. This busy intersection hosts a dynamic blend of local favorites and international brands. A KFC and Aldo shop are right next to tiny places selling Vietnam’s favorite egg coffee. The area is popular with both tourists and locals, especially on the weekends (Figure 5.3). Both the water puppet performances and the city streets of Hanoi demonstrate a negotiation between reclaiming Vietnamese identity from French colonialism, creating a viable product for profitable tourism, and preserving heritage. Hanoi, over 1,000  years old, is a city that has proactively embraced modernity and development. After winning the UNESCO Peace Prizes for 1998–9 for its many projects working toward improving inhabitants’ quality of life, the chairman of Hanoi’s People’s Committee, Hoang Van Nghien, articulated the importance of cultural institutions to the city’s development as a modern city. In addressing the city’s housing shortage and infrastructural problems, the city has grappled with how to navigate the present while honoring the future (Norindr

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FIGURE  5.3   The intersection in Hoan Kiem, or Old Quarter, in Hanoi. Photo by the author. 2001:  80–2). Since Doi Moi, Vietnam has had to embrace other brands and ideas into its marketplace. The landscape is a twisted mix of modern buildings, old French architecture, and local dwellings. For both the city and the puppets, the local countryside offers a major influence on identity. The rural area around Hanoi, the Red River Delta, plays a central role in the imagined identity of the Vietnamese people. In the opening of his book Uniquely Vietnamese, author James Edward Goodman writes, “The identity and culture of the Vietnamese people basically grew out of life and experience in the Red River Delta” (2005: 1). Water puppets are made of wood and performed by puppeteers standing behind a screen in a waist-deep pool. The main rod for the puppet is under the water, and the puppet sits on or near the surface. A complex mechanism of strings and pulleys extend back and allow the puppeteer to operate some of the puppet’s moving parts. The origin of the puppetry was the village, in the area of the Red River delta. The program for the performance at the National Puppet Theatre state that inscriptions dating back

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to 1121 mention water puppetry being performed to promote the king’s longevity. For most of its history, the techniques of each group, or phuong, were closely guarded secrets, and only recently is the knowledge of how to operate the puppets freely shared.9 During my research at the theatre, I  not only watched performances, but was also allowed to observe rehearsals and speak with performers.10 Foley describes the performance in the 1990s as having three main parts: “A reminder of the agrarian base of the country, a review of the Vietnamese success in throwing out the colonial aggressors, and an affirmation of the current stability and prosperity” (2001b:  136). She emphasizes the importance of military victory and the dramatization of “an ongoing anticolonial struggle, building national self-esteem while alerting a foreign audience that Vietnamese have continually defeated richer and more powerful foes” (2001: 138). In the productions I watched in 2016, and again in 2017, the emphasis on these scenes had not just diminished, they had disappeared completely. The current performances at the National Puppet Theatre show animals and children playing in the water, farming rice, and fishing, and there are displays of other important art forms including dance and music. Gone was the battle and gone was the victory. The daily puppet show, called Regular Water Puppet Dance, offers a series of vignettes or sketches that demonstrate the main features of mua roi nuoc: Water puppetry scenes may be simultaneously appreciated by the audience in several different ways: as light or comic entertainment; as an exhibition of the puppeteers’ technical skills and ability to elicit wonder and surprise; and as a virtual gallery of the various strands of Vietnamese culture and art made manifest in songs and sayings, sculpture and design. (Jones 1996: 86) The characters are human, animal, or types of mythic creatures. The scale of the puppets is not consistent—a human child swimming in one scene might be three times larger than a buffalo that appeared in a different scene. In the performance, each sketch is performed for about five minutes, in order to exhaust the technical and aesthetic abilities in each puppet. These scenes are not linked in any way, and there is no story.

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The first scene, after the comic character Chu Teu greets the audience and announces the story, is the two dragon puppets breathing fire and smoke. The puppeteers use fireworks to make this spectacular feat occur. After fire, the dragons are able to shoot water at each other across the stage. These immediately demonstrate the amazing technical abilities of the puppet. Other scenes show village life, dances, and musical instruments in a celebration of different aspects of Vietnamese life (Figure 5.4). During my visits to Vietnam, I  heard complaints that local audiences rarely attend the performances of the water puppets; only tourists and school children came to see the shows. This is consistent with what I observed during my three separate trips to the city for the regular show. It was not always like that; in the 1990s, Foley wrote that the audience attending the performances at the National Puppet Theatre were “largely Vietnamese” (2001b:  136). Vietnamese audiences now come for special events and new shows at the theatre. For example, at a special performance to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of ASEAN, the audience was mostly local Vietnamese and their children, and not the usual foreign tourists. The reactions of many in this audience

FIGURE 5.4   Fishing on the river is a popular scene in a Vietnamese water puppet play. Photo by the author.

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demonstrated familiarity with the puppets and stories. The most famous character in the performance is the clown Chu Teu. This cheerful character provides commentary and narration for the puppet story. During Chu Teu’s opening lines, the audience laughed and cheered, responding to his opening lines with phrases of their own. For example, the usual beginning of the show has Chu Teu recreate a conversation: The “conversation” between him and the audience is a replica of “singing” communication, where songs are exchanged between boys and girls in the village festival. “Oh my brothers!” He shouts. “What is it?” Replies a chorus. “Must I introduce myself?” He goes on. They respond:  “Of course you must! Otherwise how do we know by what name to call you?” (Linh 2005: 52) And the scene goes on. The interaction indicated that puppet performances clearly maintains a place in the imagination of Vietnamese people, even if it was not part of their regular daily life. In 2008, the National Puppet Theatre developed a new show called Countryside in the Urban Streets, which the website describes as: “In busy Hanoi, a beautiful ancient architectural space is found located peacefully inside Vietnam National Puppetry Theatre— the space ‘Countryside in the Urban Streets.’ ” This production won the Championship Award at the Harmony World Puppet Carnival in Thailand in 2014. In the summer of 2017, the new piece was presented during special performances on Saturdays and Sundays. Countryside in the Urban Streets combined live actors, dry puppets, and water puppets to enact scenes of the countryside while emphasizing the theatre’s urban location. In one scene, actors dressed in traditional rural clothes and with straw hats are shown tilling their fields, while, across the water, stage puppets are shown ploughing the field with buffalo. In another scene, the actors are in the water, holding large baskets for fishing. Instead of real fish, they enact chasing after and trying to catch the puppet fish splashing in the water. Actors on land sometimes mirror the characters in the water; dancers and musicians appear in both puppet and human form.

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The different scenes in Countryside in the Urban Street reflect those of the company’s typical show. Where then is the urban? How might this production reflect current dilemmas in sorting out the relationships between city and village in contemporary Vietnamese identity? Puppet scholar John Bell explores applications of Bruno Latour’s theories from We Have Never Been Modern in a way that might suggest how the bodies and puppets work together to suggest urbanity in the performance. Bell notes that Latour emphasizes “mixtures between entirely new types of being, hybrids of nature and culture” in order to comprehend the dynamic society of the present (2014: 45). Bell reports that all puppets contain this dualism of making something lifeless, full of life. Countryside in the Urban Street takes the dichotomy even further; live bodies perform alongside the puppets, interact with the puppets, mirror the puppets, and sometimes, seen or unseen, control the puppets. If the puppet represents the primitive past, the human body represents the scientific present. The puppets that appear without any obvious puppeteer remind the viewer of an animistic time where objects held equal potential for life and power as salient beings. It is a key feature of modernity that living and nonliving must belong to two separate realms. Like many puppet forms in Southeast Asia, the stage and performance of water puppetry invokes a mirror of the world for the audience. Being shapes like the two most important buildings in the village and being located in the village pond, the water puppet stage and the natural elements around form a microcosm manifestation of the three worlds. The sky and trees, the fairy and dragon dance in the show symbolize the above world. The stage and plants in the pond, the people, and the characters in the show represent this world. The reflection in the water represents the underworld. (Linh 2005: 60) Moving the stage to the city and inserting the bodies of people to perform alongside the puppets expands this older conception of the world. The need to create performances that harken back to a more “authentic” identity is revealed. In Vietnam, there are certain practices that people who consider themselves Kinh, or “ethnic Vietnamese,” consciously follow. Avieli considers motives similar to

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those I am identifying in the puppet performance, to the practice of making and enjoying Vietnamese rice cakes, or banh Tet. She argues that this iconic Vietnamese dish allows Kinh to negotiate “the anxiety that characterizes Vietnamese sociocultural arrangements and conventions” that have surfaced because of political changes, imported cultural elements, and discord between local and national identities (Avieli 2005:  167). The banh Tet are made of rice and meat, and invoke notions of cosmology and rice farming that are similar to those performed in water puppetry. Vietnamese today celebrate the new year and eat banh Tet as a celebration of their particular culture and as a rejection of foreign, or non-Vietnamese, things. “The cakes, then, denote patriotism” (Avieli 2005: 177). The design of the stage at the National Puppet Theatre reinforces its connection to festival and an essential Kinh identity. Behind the pagoda-shaped structure, as the audience enters the theatre, a large Vietnamese festival flag is one of the first things to be seen. This oversize, square flag has a red border that is scalloped like flames, with outlines of blue, yellow, and green around the red middle (Figure  5.5). At the climax of the performance, smaller, identical flags shoot out of the fence posts that line the playing area. Festivals provide not only the typical occasion of the village performances, but the use of the flags in the National Puppet Theatre also reflects Vietnamese identity as belonging to the village and tradition. Contemporary Vietnamese identity as expressed in Countryside in the Urban Street is confused. There is no longer a clear divide between the past and present, the primitive or scientific, but these two intermingle and coexist. The relationship sometimes produces great harmonies such as the scenes where puppet and person work together in the rice fields. Other scenes reveal possible frustration. For example, in the scene where the men are trying to catch the puppet fish, the puppet fish jump, and twist, and spin, constantly outwitting and outmaneuvering the men. In these kinds of scenes, human bodies appear slow and awkward compared to the lithe, graceful, quick movements of the puppets. Discussions about how to develop and preserve heritage in Hanoi reflects a similar confusion. Norindr traces how conservation groups in the city desire to preserve the city’s French colonial architecture as a kind of “nostalgia for a bygone colonial era, which masquerades as a mandate for helping a nation preserve its historical heritage, its cultural sites of memory.” He further explains the interesting

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FIGURE  5.5   The indoor water stage at the National Puppet Theatre in Hanoi. Photo by the author. link between colonialism and local identity: “The nostalgia for the French colonial era, a period when native traditions and French customs were more clearly segregated, is a mode of apprehending contemporary Vietnam” (2001:  83). This argument suggests that contemporary Vietnam struggles with how to incorporate different global influences when the division between “us” and “them” becomes foggy and unclear. It is difficult to package history for sale while maintaining a sense of heritage or authenticity. The National Puppet Theatre thus works to express Vietnamese identities abroad, for foreign audiences, and remain relevant for local audiences as well.

CHAPTER SIX

Inventing Middle-Class Tradition in Thailand “Thai-ness” (khwam pen Thai), a specific understanding of Thai identity, has been a concern of the ruling classes in Thailand since early last century: “[The elites] fear that without wise and constant intervention, Thai-ness, will go missing, never to be seen again, like a lost child in a dark forest” (Connors 2005: 523). Recently, Thai-ness has become especially important to the upwardly mobile middle class. The middle classes in Thailand are historically linked to Westernization, mercantilism, trade, and education since the beginning of the twentieth century (Koanantakool 2002:  219). Middle class as a Western-identified formation conflicts with the elite identities exemplified within “Thai-ness.” Puppet companies must negotiate these tensions by establishing a traditional theatre that was influenced by and resonates with Western theatre practices. Each group is both inward and outward facing—and urban geography reinforces these subject positions. I  argue that these groups occupy a space of “invented tradition,” where middle class and elite constructions of Thai identity, or “Thai-ness,” might negotiate and form. The history of puppet performance in Thailand is intertwined with the key ideologies of Thai-ness. There are two traditional types of puppetry in Thailand:  nang and hun. Nang, or shadow puppetry, is thought to be the oldest. Nang yai or large shadow puppets (similar to sbeik thom in Cambodia) perform stories from

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the Ramayana. In southern Thailand, nang tulung remains popular as both entertainment and political commentary. The other type, hun, translates as “body” or sculpture” and refers to various forms using three-dimensional puppets (Sinthupahan 2012: 46). In many accounts, the first major period of Thai civilization is the Sukhothai Period (1240–1438), which is seen as the cradle of Thai arts and culture. (It is worth noting that recent scholarship challenges the accuracy of this claim, but the perception remains.) Earliest mentions of puppetry in Thailand appear in the tenth century, where the art form appeared in ceremonial festivals.1 Many of the performing arts developed fully during the next significant period called the Ayutthaya (1351–1767). Claiming origin or history from either of these periods elevates the status of cultural and artistic forms. By the fourteenth century, or Ayutthaya period, four different types of hun were used to share moral lessons through myths and legends that were both educational and entertaining. Hun puppetry often accompanied performances of khon (masked dance), likay (spoken drama), and nang (large shadow puppetry). Up until the twentieth century, different types of hun performances were common as popular entertainment and especially at important state events such as funerals. At the death of King Rama VI in 1926, the Department of Festivals was closed and many puppets and masks were neglected or lost. Finally, these were placed in the National Museum for safekeeping, and it is only recently that different types of hun have seen a renaissance (Chandavij and Pramualratana 1999: 6–15). Dating back from the Sukhothai and Ayutthaya periods is the Thai idea of sakdina, a type of social hierarchy that infiltrates all aspects of Thai society. As an official system it was outlawed by King Rama V (1868–1910), but remains a powerful ideology. Sakdina requires people to act and speak certain ways according to their status in society—which is influenced by rank, gender, economics, skin color, and ethnic heritage. Contemporary Thai society constantly negotiates its principles as a democratic society committed to social equality within these traditional values. Building on these ideas, later laws sought to make Thai society more uniform by changing the name Siam to Thailand, calling all citizens “Thais” regardless of ethnic identity, requiring religious conformity, and enforcing Thai as the national language. A common example of these social codes and laws is evident at the beginning of any

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movie or theatrical performance when all in attendance must stand for the playing of the national anthem to honor the king. Since the 1960s, the arts have been used to reinforce the three pillars of Thai identity of nation, religion, and king. Thai spaces also reflect this triad, which “translate into surfaces, screens, comforting masks across the chaotic, unpredictable world,” and must be applied when seeking to understand Thai urban spaces (King 2011:  xxviii). In this chapter, I  will explore how three different puppet companies, Joe Louis Puppet Theatre, Kum Nai Thai Puppet, and Sema Thai Marionette Arts for Social Foundation, negotiate space and tradition in order to articulate different versions of Thai-ness that speak to the complexities of contemporary society and identity in Bangkok.

Joe Louis Puppet Theatre The program for one of Joe Louis Puppet Theatre’s most lavish productions, Birth of Ganesha (2008), introduces their style of puppetry: For over a hundred of year, Hun Lakorn Lek has been a gracefully unique traditional Thai performing art. Hun Lakorn Lek is a Thai cultural heritage; echoing the wisdom of the past as confirming its significance in the presence. Beautiful in gesture, majestic in style, three puppeteers united as one is a remarkable thing of Hun Lakorn Lek. Joe Louis Puppet Theatre specializes in their own version of hun lakhon lek, or small dance-drama puppets. Three puppeteers hold a large doll puppet, over one meter tall, aloft. Each puppeteer works closely with the others to control part of the puppet and to bring it to life (Figure 6.1). One person controls the head and right arm, another has the body and left arm, and the final puppeteer controls the feet. Strings attached to the hands that run down the rods allow the puppeteers to move the hands and fingers in remarkable lifelike movements. The puppeteers are visible with the puppet, and their carefully choreographed dance complements the movements of the ornate puppet. The puppet requires skill and coordination to move in space. Most of the characters tell the traditional story of the Ramakien (the Thai version of the Ramayana), but recently Joe Louis has added many contemporary figures such as the pop music star Michael

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FIGURE 6.1   Puppeteers from Joe Louis in Thailand demonstrate how to manipulate the puppets. Photo by the author. Jackson or Elvis Presley. These popular puppets, because they mix tradition with popular culture, personify the modern idea of Thai-ness as connected to the elite ruling class that is accessible to the masses.

History of Joe Louis Joe Louis Puppet Theatre was founded in 1985 under the name Sakorn Natasilp (“Sakorn Theatrical Troupe”) by Sakorn Yangkiosod, often called Joe Louis because of his love for the American boxer. Coming from a family of traditional performing artists, he learned the masked dance khon and the folk musical form of likay as well as puppetry. On May 21, 2007, Sakorn passed away, leaving many to wonder about the sustainability of the puppets he championed. Thai theatre scholar Theera Nuchpiam concludes that in spite of these concerns, “with [Sakorn’s] efforts, Thai traditional puppetry seems to have succeeded in acquiring a ‘space’ for itself in the contemporary world” (2016: 27). I applaud

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Nuchpiam’s optimism, but the history of Joe Louis is a history of displacement. The company has had difficulty finding and keeping a permanent performance home in Bangkok, and currently the group gives full performances only at international festivals or by special commission. The spatial history of Joe Louis Puppet Theatre reflects the changing nature of space and identity within Bangkok. Hun lakohn lek, the type of puppetry practiced by Joe Louis Puppet Theatre, was initially developed by Krae Saphatwanit in 1901. Krae was a talented kohn dancer who became fascinated by Thai puppetry late in life. He developed hun lakohn lek as a hybrid of two older forms of hun puppetry: hun luang and hun krabok. These two forms tie hun lakohn lek to dynamic elements of Thai history and politics. Hun luang is the older form of puppetry and dates back to the Ayutthaya period as an important court performance for funerals and festivals. The puppets were about one meter in length, with heads made from wood or paper-mache. Eleven strings were attached to the head, body, and limbs in order to manipulate the puppets. Stories were based on the Ramakien and other Thai myths. “The hun luang contributed to the establishment of legitimacy and consolidation of royal authority in each reign until that of King Rama V” (Yamashita 2005: 11). For the next several hundred years, hun luang, together with kohn, was important for state celebrations and as a way to share Thai culture with foreign visitors. There are no records of hun luang performances after 1910, and the few remaining puppets were given to the National Museum (Chandavij and Pramualratana 1999: 15). There is little written explanation for how the puppets were manipulated, and this complicated art has been lost. Through the heritage of hun luang, hun lakohn lek is able to claim status as an important part of Thai identity and culture. Hun krabok, or Thai rod puppetry, originated around 1893 by a painter and wood carver, Neng, who was inspired by a Hainan Chinese puppet show. These small puppets were easier to manipulate than hun luang—the single puppeteer grasps the main body rod under the puppet’s costume with one hand and manipulates the two side rods, which are attached to the puppet’s hands, with the other. This newer, less technical form, surpassed hun luang in popularity for festivals and public celebrations. In 1942, Thailand passed the National Culture Policy, designed to strengthen and maintain Thai culture. The policy forbade foreign-based art forms, and most performers destroyed or hid their puppets to avoid persecution

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under the new law. Since 1975, several artists and universities have revived the hun krabok style of puppetry. One exceptional artist, Chakrabhand Posayakrit, creates exquisite puppets and performances that only the rich and well-placed are lucky enough to see (Virulrak and Foley 2001: 84–5). Hun krabok represents the quest for Thai identity in the face of globally influenced innovation. Hun lakhon lek was created for the common people and became popular because it could travel. The puppet’s arms are on two sticks that are visible to the audience. Krae reduced the number of strings, making the puppet easier to manipulate, but still capable of astonishing lifelike movement. The troupe performed both at the palace and for the common people; it was common to hire a puppet troupe to perform at a funeral. Yamashita attributes the troupe’s popularity partially to their mobility—“Hiring a puppet theater was more reasonable than hiring a human theater since it is easier to travel with small puppets and sets. It created the same beauty as the human theater and had the same role in the community as regards to status” (2005: 18). Nai Krae died in 1929 and there were fewer performances of hun lakhon lek, but the form continued, albeit on a smaller scale than before. Television and movies became more popular for entertainment and were even used in place of puppetry for funerals and fairs. Ya Yip, Krae’s daughter-in-law, took over the leadership of the troupe, and when she died she passed the troupe and thirty puppets to Sakron Yangkheosod, whose father performed with the troupe. By the 1970s there were very few performances, and Sakorn sold many of the puppets to the Ancient City Company, a cultural theme park that would give short performances on request. Sakorn was trained to dance likay, but complained that Krae would not teach him the puppet art; nonetheless, he stole a look anyways (Yamashita 2005: 25–7). Sakorn’s nickname of Joe Louis came from a monk who called him Liw, or “weeping willow,” in order to cure him from some ailment. Liw became Louis and the Joe was added soon after, after the American boxer. The name stuck and became Salorn’s stage name that would later be adapted by the puppet company (Yamashita 2005: 28). Complicating the history of hun lakhon lek are accounts that, right before his death, Krae dumped most of his puppets into the Chao Phraya river in order to prevent others from copying his

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artistic form (Sinthuphan 2012: 57). In 1942 the National Cultural Policy prohibited performances with foreign origins—and many artists of the older hun krabok threw their puppets in the river or hid them to avoid punishment (Virulrak and Foley 2001: 83). Krae, however, is also said to have held a rite to put a curse on anyone who might try to copy his methods for making and performing puppetry. Krae left thirty puppets to his daughter-in-law, who then gave them to Sakorn (Dararai 2007). Sakorn admits he was afraid of the curse, but that they did a ceremony in order to ask permission to revive the form and recreate the missing puppets (Yamashita 2005: 30). Some blame the curse whenever the puppet troupe encounters problems. The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) shifted the status of the puppet company from quaint entertainment to a marker of Thai identity and culture in 1985, when they requested Sakorn give a performance for a festival targeting tourists (Yamashita 2005: 29). He quickly organized his family and developed a performance for the festival. Sakorn’s nine children, and later grandchildren, all became active members of the troupe and learned all aspects of puppetbuilding and performance. The opportunities for performance grew as the TAT desired unique cultural performances to meet their goals of further developing tourism as a strong part of the Thai economy. Sakorn developed some unique performance features for his style of hun lakhon lek. Most notable is that the puppeteers perform in full view of the audience, combining dance and puppet manipulation in dynamic synchronized movement. His family, the puppeteers for his new troupe, were trained in dance, but had a difficult time manipulating the puppets. As a solution, Sakorn melded the dance movements from khon with the puppet movements (Yamashita 2005: 33). The solution may have been thought of for practical purposes, but by incorporating khon into the puppetry Sakorn rooted his innovations into the foundation of Thai identity. Evidence suggests that khon dates back to the Ayutthaya period (possibly before) and was often performed together with the shadow puppet theatre nang, linking these two important forms of court performance (Rutnin 1996: 8). King Vajiravudh (1880–1925) used khon to demonstrate his power as absolute monarch by establishing a special school accessible only to the elite. Performance themes also emphasized loyalty to the court and valorized sacrifice for the nation. Later monarchs also established schools and sponsored troupes, making khon an important element in modern Thai identity

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and power (Rutnin 1996:  11). When I  visited the theatre’s office and rehearsal space in 2013, the artists I met with emphasized the importance of training in khon dance to their work as puppeteers. Other modifications to the puppet include the ability of the head to nod up and down as well as moving side to side. In the mid-1990s, in response to the growing tourist market, the urbanization of Bangkok with the growth of an educated middle class, and exposure to global mass media such as film and television, Joe Louis Theatre transformed into commercial entertainment (Yamashita 2005: 43). As Thai identity shifted, the puppet company did as well, both to reflect and reinforce Thai urban identity. In 1996 Sakorn was recognized as a national artist and their audiences continued to grow. Soon the company had a board of directors and a large staff that were no longer just family members. It was time for Joe Louis Puppet Theatre to find a permanent home.

A home for Joe Louis After Sakorn was named a national artist, he appeared on television and declared the need for a permanent theatre. Sarin Yangkheosod, Scorn’s seventh son, said, “I hope that Joe Louis small puppetry performances will bring fame and recognition to our country the same way that water puppetry has for Vietnam. As long as I’m alive I’ll try every way I know to make that happen” (Yamashita 2005:  44). Water puppetry (mua roi nuoc) was a minor village form of entertainment that had been nationalized by the Vietnamese government to demonstrate the richness of Vietnamese culture to diverse audiences. The performances illustrate Vietnam as strong, peaceful, and prosperous; it is “an iconic representation for modern, capitalizing Vietnam” (Foley 2001b:  139).2 The goal of a permanent venue aligned with the ideals of Thai-ness because a theatre would allow the group to present regular performances to diverse audiences. The theatre would stand as an emblem of Thai-ness expressed within the puppet art—and the idea of Thai-ness created an opportunity for the company to prosper and grow. Throughout its history, Joe Louis Puppet Theatre has also negotiated state ideology, tourist audiences, and local tastes. The company has occupied three primary locations:  just outside the

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city, the city center, and a yet-to-be-completed location across the river. Each location articulates a certain relationship to the three pillars of thai society: nation, king, and religion. The first home was unsuccessful because of its distance from the city center. The second location in the center of Bangkok connected the company directly to the monarchy, reinforcing their status as a Thai tradition, and was a period of prosperity for the company. That home did not last, and Joe Louis struggled in an uneasy relationship with an unsettled government and a struggling economy. The first space, an open-air theatre, was built in Nonthaburi (then on the outskirts of Bangkok) in 1997. The idea for the theatre came from Sakorn’s sons who had visited France and seen a theatre built for puppet performances. The small theatre was outdoors and built just outside of Sakorn’s home. Records indicate that audiences for this theatre were often small, and sometimes nonexistent (Yamashita 2005: 63). The theatre was located too far away from the city center. The artists began planning to build a larger theatre but then, in May 1999, a fire broke out, destroying the family home, the theatre, and all of the puppets. Sakorn has been quoted saying that the fire was “Krea’s revenge” (Krausz 2007). But the family felt that the puppet art should not be allowed to perish. Various institutions and individuals contributed financial assistance, allowing the company to rebuild the theatre with offices and rehearsal space (Jirajarupat 2011). Nonthaburi remains the administrative home for the company, but they no longer give performances at that space. Rather, the building in this now bustling suburb of Bangkok functions as the company’s center for outreach to the rest of the world through visits to international festivals. For example, in 2006 and 2008, the company won first place in the World Festival of Puppet Art in Prague and recently the group has toured Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. In 2000 the group moved into the city, renting a theatre located in the Suan Lum Night Bazaar located in the district (khet) of Pathumwan. There are fifty khet in the city of Bangkok, each with its own distinctive personality. The bazaar was located right within a key shopping area, bringing together Thai cultural products with luxury goods from around the world. The bazaar was owned and maintained by the Crown Property Bureau (CPB), which owned and developed much of this valuable commercial area. The CPB, the monarchy’s main investment arm, has endured much controversy;

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initially established in 1935 as a government agency to fund the king’s affairs, by 2000, when Joe Louis entered into a contract with the CPB, it “was a vast conglomerate of ambiguous status, regarded ambivalently, widely complained of and held in suspicion, yet ‘good’ because it funded and thereby enabled a revered King.” Many felt it was mismanaged and incompetent (King 2011: 91). In 2004 the Joe Louis Puppet Theatre was renamed as Nattayasala Hun Lakhon Lek, or the Traditional Thai Puppet Theatre, by Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana. The troupe became a haven for Thai culture and performance. The theatre struggled financially, though, rarely making enough to pay salaries or electric bills. Visits by members of the royal family also raised the profile of the theatre and increased its status as a traditional Thai art. “The timing of these visits has often been crucial in staying impending crisis or in stirring public interest and support and, certainly, media coverage” (Yamashita 2005:  72). It is difficult to say for sure whether the timing of relocation onto lands owned and managed by the monarchy triggered royal recognition of a company with an already lengthy history, but it is important to note the relationship between space and the official royal designation. Additionally, the royal designation and patronage would contribute to the success of the theatre and the night bazaar more generally; but if the lands were held by the CPB, this attention was certainly not disinterested. The royal household stood to benefit. The exploitation of performing arts by the Thai monarchy and government has much precedent in the theatrical history of Thailand. After the revolution of 1932 the monarchy was diminished, but the democratic government used performing arts in political campaigns. After the restoration of the monarchy, theatre in the 1960s and 1970s were staged with royalist themes and as fundraisers for the court. Theatre in the late twentieth century is marked by conflict. “Constant fights and conflicts between the two camps continue even today at the intellectual podium, on university stages, in the National Theatre, at cultural centers, and on public grounds” (Rutnin 1996: xv). The night bazaar was one among many shopping attractions in the area that King coins a “landscape of consumption” (2011:  94). Near Chulalongkorn University are situated large shopping complexes such as Siam Centre, Siam Discovery Centre, Central World Plaza, MBK, restaurants, and other shops. The

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area struggled to negotiate Western modernity and convenience with a Thai sense of authenticity, making it “more chaotic and muddled” (King 2011: 96). Since 1970 the area also houses luxury condominiums, private schools, and a mix of wealthy Thai and expats who live, work, and go to school in the area. Tourists come to Thailand seeking an authentic experience, and amid international luxury, the night bazaar offers a means for the tourist to experience that authenticity without having to go far off the beaten path or participate in the seedy sex trade.3 Locating the theatre within the night bazaar positioned Joe Louis Theatre as authentic Thai culture, endorsed by the crown, for consumption by a mass audience. The night bazaar provided a rare kind of public space for people from many backgrounds to come together in the city. It was not only popular with tourists and expats, but was visited by locals as well. The breadth of audience was reflected in Yamashita’s research that determined the theatre in the Suan Lum Night Bazaar could seat 324; about 15 to 30  percent of the audience were foreign tourists, according to a 2005 survey. Yamashita observed in 2004 that most of the Thai audience was middle-class and nicely dressed; they seemed to be a mix of parents with children, business people, couples on a date, and others. Most people were from Bangkok and the surrounding areas (Yamashita 2005:  54). Thai cities do not have a great deal of public space for people of different classes to come together. In the past, “public open space was mostly linked to religion,” now shopping malls have taken its place (King 2011: 104). Shopping, food, and a mix of entertainments foster an international Thai identity, but the presence and popularity of the puppet theatre rooted those identities in Thai values as reflected in something marked as tradition. Even with the central location and royal recognition, the troupe struggled financially. In January 2004, the theatre opened a restaurant adjacent to the theatre. Customers visited the restaurant whether or not they planned to watch the show. Sometimes during mealtime a couple of the puppets would come out to perform and interact with the customers. The troupe was also commissioned to perform in other venues in Bangkok. They might perform for a special event at the Paragon shopping center, be hosted by hotels, or be hired for a party or other special occasion. School children are often taken to see performances on a field troupe as part of their

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education about Thai culture. After the tsunami in 2004, the group would often be invited to perform internationally as part of rescue efforts and programs celebrating Thai identity. In 2006 the Joe Louis Puppet Theatre was honored with the first place award for traditional puppetry at the World Festival of Puppet Arts in Prague, Czech Republic. Sakorn died in 2007 of lung disease and kidney failure. Some worried that his death signaled an end for Thai puppetry (Nuchpiam 2016:  27). His children, however, have diligently worked to keep the puppet theatre going. Surin Yangkheowsod commented, “We feel it’s our entire family’s obligation to continue Father’s passion and legacy.” Sakorn’s nine children and eighteen grandchildren all remain committed to running and managing the company. A small group of these children formed their own company at the Aksara Grand Theatre at the King Power Complex at Soi Rang Nam in Bangkok. The company there would give command performances for tour groups in the lavish 600-seat theatre, but most of these shows were part of a lunch or dinner buffet at the adjacent Ramayana Restaurant. In news media and people’s imaginations, the existence of the puppet company was closely tied to and dependent on the theatre at the Night Bazaar. In 2010 the contract for Joe Louis Puppet Theatre at the Suan Lum Night Bazaar expired, and news agencies reported: “Sadly the curtain dropped permanently” (Lavina 2012). These same news articles often reported that the company was not founded until 2002—the year the theatre moved to the bazaar. After a period of uncertainty, it was reported that a new theatre was to be built at the new Asiatique. In 2012, the planned for date for the theatre to open was June. As of February 2017, the company only had the restaurant open. Plans are still happening for a theatre that can host complete shows on the second floor of their space, but an opening date is not yet set. In 2014, I  was able to attend the puppet performance at the Ramayana Restaurant in the King Power Complex. The short, tenminute performance was typical of the dinner shows given by both companies. The first two puppets to take the stage were of a prince and a princess. They danced around the stage—teasing and flirting. The puppets then worked their way around the restaurant—kissing a lady’s cheeks or perhaps stealing the cap of a gentleman. In other versions of this scene, the prince is usually replaced with Hanoman

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the monkey who helps Rama rescue Sita from the clutches of the demon Ravana. Hanoman is especially cheeky and sometimes will even steal items from purses or try to kiss a woman on the mouth. Next, two more puppets entered into the playing space. These were each elaborately dressed female puppets, with a long flowing dress and scarves, like Chinese water sleeves, hanging from the puppet’s arms. The costume really accentuated the graceful movements of the puppets and puppeteers around the stage. After the performance, audience members could pose for a picture with the puppets. The popularity of cultural performances in a restaurant setting is not unique to lakhon lek. Dinner shows are common around Southeast Asia as a means for the visitor to experience culture through food and onstage. The performance complements and complicates an encounter that Lucy M.  Long would categorize as “culinary tourism,” a means “for tying together notions of perspective and the variety of instances in which a foodways is considered representative of the other.” Long considers food and the places food is consumed as a foodway where the encounter is both exploratory and intentional, allowing the individual agency in constructing meaning (Long 2013: 20–1). The puppets in those spaces remained separate and aesthetic as traditional culture, approved by the court, to reinforce Thai-ness. As the space shifted from theatre to restaurant, the performance and its meaning also shifted. Unlike the performances at the night market that consisted of primarily Thai audience members, almost all of the restaurant patrons were foreign tourists. The food—rather expensive and bland by local standards—deterred locals from attending. The production itself was minimal—like the many dishes on the buffet, it was designed to give just a taste of something authentic. Combining food with watching a cultural show engages the tourist in a more sensual and complete experience than just attending the theatre: “It engages taste, smell, touch, and vision, offers a deeper, more integrated level of experience. It engages one’s physical being, not simply as an observer, but as a participant as well” (Long 2013: 21). The movement of the puppets through the audience to interact and even touch them adds another level to this participation. In the theatre at Askara Grand or at the night market, there would not be space for this kind of close interaction.

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Nostalgia from tradition—Kum Nai Thai Puppet Kum Nai Thai Puppet, another group that specializes in hun lakohn lek, began giving almost daily performances at the Artist’s House (Baan Silapin) in about 2011. The performers are led by Jatuporn Ninto, who previously worked with the Joe Louis Theatre before striking out on his own. Ninto also builds the puppets that are used by the troupe in training and performance. One of his primary goals is to teach young people about Thai culture and heritage through dance and puppetry. In 2015, he had thirteen boys and nine girls studying regularly at the theatre. When I was there, I observed him working with three boys, about twelve or thirteen years old. The boys were learning to work together to manipulate a fish puppet— he allowed them to work through the sequence of movements on their own. Sometimes he would offer verbal guidance or use his hands to adjust their body position. One boy forgot an important sequence and was required to go off to the side to do push-ups. The students seemed focused and dedicated to doing a good job for their master. About thirty minutes before Kum Nai’s performance, various boats pulled up along the dock by the Artist’s House. Along the chilling is a narrow boardwalk where visitors can stroll past other shops selling snacks, homes, and a wat, or Buddhist temple. At the wat, it is popular to buys bags of food to give the fish in the khlong, or canals. Fishing used to be an important livelihood for people living along the canals, but now there is a Buddhist emphasis on preserving life and there are signs proclaiming fishing is forbidden. People laugh as they watch the fish tumble over each other in an attempt to eat the rich food being dropped in the water. The atmosphere in the area is peaceful and invokes thoughts of another era. It is very different from the busy city nearby. The performance takes place in the Artist’s House—there is no raised stage but rather a clear area with a garden and waterfall as backdrop. The performance invokes the story of the Ramayana, but mostly demonstrates the masterful manipulation of the puppeteers. The puppeteers are dressed in all black and wear a half mask to cover their face. Like the puppeteers of Joe Louis, the puppeteers’ movements are dance-like and in syncopation with the puppets.

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Recorded music accompanies the dance. The main feature of the performance is the monkey king Hanoman and the princess Sita moving about the audience. They kiss, tease, and pose for pictures. During the performance I watched in 2015, the audience was a mix of foreign tourists and a group of college aged Thai students there for a cultural trip. When I asked the company, they indicated that the mix was pretty typical. The performance is valued both as a unique tourist experience and also as a way to experience authentic Thai culture. In contrast to the lavish restaurant that serves as the stage for Joe Louis within the constructed “Asia” of Asiatique, the Artist’s House invokes nostalgia for a way of life that has been lost to most Thai living in the city. The khlongs represent a “forgotten” part of the city in contrast to Asiatique, which is located on the Chao Phraya River, not far from the Grand Palace and numerous high-end hotels. Asiatique places a constructed version of tradition for sale in a part of town that asserts opulence and Thai-ness connected to the royal court and modern commerce. Geographers Noparatnaraporn and King describe the difference between these two urban realms: The royal and elite are that of palaces [.  . .]. Against that is arrayed the private world of khlongs (canals), villages, spiritinformed landscapes, and the light, elevated, airy houses of both human and the spirit occupants of the water and land. Whereas the elite realm is to project permanence, solidarity, authority, and its images to be impressed in some “collective imagination,” the private is just that: private, passing, ephemeral. (2007: 58) The differences suggested by the spaces occupied relates to the differences in approaches taken by these two puppet companies. Joe Louis Theatre represents permanence and the royal sanctioned tradition. Even as the company struggles to have a space in Bangkok for performances, they are confident and sure of their place within Thai society and as an expression of Thai-ness. Kum Nai, located among the khlongs, represents the uncertainty of tradition and the ephemeral nature of a performance form that might be lost to future generations unless care is taken. The khlongs and the puppetry there exist within the complex dynamic of modern Thai identities and a nostalgia for an authentic past that never existed (Noparatnaraporn and King 2007: 79–80).

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Sema Thai—middle-class tradition In contrast to Joe Louis Theatre that began in the outskirts of Bangkok and then moved to the city center, Sema Thai Marionette Arts for Social Foundation remains in the suburbs. The company represents a new kind of tradition fashioned especially for middleclass Thai values. Sema Thai Marionette Arts for Social Foundation was established in April 2004. The artists trained in European marionette traditions, but consciously desired to create a uniquely Thai form of puppetry. Nimit Pipithkul, the group’s founder and director, explained that he wondered why no one was taking care of Thai puppetry. His answer was not to learn or preserve one of the older forms of Thai hun, but rather to seek a new kind of puppetry that would speak to a contemporary audience. He felt that marionettes were “a traditional art of the oldest in the world” (Celeste 2011)—puppets and arts contain tradition and local wisdom together with contemporary values. The group performs and offers workshops and training sessions; sixty new puppet companies have started around Thailand. Each group has their own style and focus, but the main artists and audiences are young people. Pipithkul explains the group’s focus on developing the next generation of puppet lovers: “The art does not just belong to Sema Thai—but it belongs to the world.” Sema Thai’s theatre is located in the Lak Si District—part of the middle-class suburbs of Bangkok; it is both a home and a theatre. It takes almost an hour to get to this space from the center of the city where I was staying. I had to take the BTS Sky Train north to Mo Chit, and from there catch a taxi to the theatre. The taxi ride was about thirty minutes, and each time I went the driver would struggle to find the address, which required maneuvering down several quiet residential streets. After my visit to the theatre, we had to either call a taxi or walk the distance to the main road in order to find a way back to the BTS Station. The neighborhood was middle-class and quiet. It is no mistake that much of Sema Thai’s mission and performances center on educational programs for children, which mirrors the growth of the urban middle-class identity in Bangkok as shaped by their experiences in secondary and postsecondary education (Koanantakool 2002: 220). Education is the hallmark

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of the middle class and finds cultural expression through the puppet performances. Koanantakool argues that Thai dance, though once the property of the elite, has been consumed and retained by the middle class, and “delivers a perception of cultural competence that enables the cultivated middle class to contest the taste code of the [state]” (2002: 222). Similarly, puppetry offers another site of cultural acceptance and resistance to different ideas of Thai-ness. Connors describes how Thai cultural policy and ideas of Thai-ness have often been both reacting to and influenced by globalization. In 2004 the ministry, through the Office of Contemporary Arts and Culture, published Phachuen lokapiwat thang watthanathan— “Confronting Cultural Globalization.” In the book the author, Surichai Wan’gaeo, a well-known Thai academic, identifies two main positions in relation to culture:



1 “Cultural elitism”—lathe chronchannam

thangwatthanatham, that “culture is something beautiful and right and implies that only a minority in society know the difference between good and bad standards and that this minority should define policy from above”—a royalistnationalist position. 2 “Cultural populism”—lathiprachaniyom thangwatthanatham, “emphasizes the culture of the ordinary people and the villagers,”—a nationalist–localist position (Connors 2005: 541).

Joe Louis Puppet and Kum Nai Thai Puppet represent the first two approaches. Finally, Surichai calls for a third approach, which he calls the “creative cultural” sangsan watthanatham, “which promotes diverse and pluralistic responses to globalization by communities and organizations that are not necessarily national based” (Connors 2005:  541). This “creative cultural” approach directly relates to Sema Thai, which draws from international forms of puppetry that they feel are “universal” and reimagines it as specifically Thai through manipulation and story. “By implication, expressions of Thai-ness are not fixed territorially but take shape in creative interaction with non-Thai elements” (Connors 2005: 542).

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Inventing from foreign traditions Sema Thai works within the confines of different traditions, one European and the other Thai, in order to create a performance that is global and yet still relevant to contemporary Thai identity and culture. Sema Thai, even while acknowledging their debt to European forms and artists, also recognizes that their style of doing this puppetry has its roots in Thai values and aesthetics. For example, in Thai dance, the hands are significant because of their beauty and unique gestures. Pipithkul explained to me that in Sema Thai’s productions, the hands of the puppeteers remain beautiful. The actions of their fingers as they manipulate the strings are not unlike the movements of the dancer’s hands. Sema Thai negotiates these different national discourses of tradition as they teach creativity and heritage through puppetry. Pipithkul explained, “If art survives, then the community survives.” The stories they tell are the stories of their community. One of their students exclaimed, “I am excited to have a chance to preserve culture and to present it as well.” Another puppeteer commented, “I am happy to share this tradition with others.” The mission of the company, its work with artists, content of the performances, and outreach demonstrate a conscious positioning of these marionettes as tradition within Thai history and culture. The location, stories, and outreach of Sema Thai articulates a certain kind of modern Thai identity that favors a certain kind of unified middle-class “Thai-ness” in contrast to ethnic clashes and political dissent. This kind of identity persists and employs foreign elements. Kasian Tejapira writes about the quandary of foreign consumer goods within expressions of Thai-ness. The embracement of these things as “Thai,” even though they come from outside the culture, reflects “the liberation of national identity as signifier from the specific national or ethnic commodity-referents. Thus Thainess becomes unanchored, uprooted, and freed from the regime of reference to commodities signifying national or ethnic Thai identity” (2001:  153). Outside signifiers become less important as long as there is an interior Thai-ness within the person or puppet. Pipithkul explained to me that they sought to combine the marionette tradition they learned abroad with a Thai sensibility. The visual language of the puppets and the stories they tell combine

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to express a postmodern Thai identity that might better reflect middle-class Thai values than the older types of hun puppetry. Sema Thai’s puppets might be understood within a larger framework that mixes influences from many foreign cultures, aesthetics, and words to reflect a modern Thai identity that is also hybrid (Tejapira 2001: 154–5).

Chao Ngor—a story of tradition The aesthetics and story of one of their most often performed shows enters into dialogue with these Thai traditions and values. The puppet performance complicates the division of high and low culture and society as represented by tradition; Sema Thai seeks to create a notion of tradition suitable for a global middle-class Thai audience. One of Sema Thai’s most often performed and toured pieces is Chao Ngor by Nimit Pipthkul. This adaptation of the popular Thai folk story Sang Thong relates a popular theme of unknown beauty hidden underneath an ugly physique. The story, and its many variants, was declared Intangible Cultural Heritage by the Thai government in 2010: Today, the popularity of Sang Thong story persists in other forms:  students’ textbooks, comic books, fairy tale books, animated cartoons, television folk tale dramas, or novels. It is also featured in contemporary arts such as in modern sculpture and modern puppet theatre. The story and the characters of Sang Thong can also be found as the name of plants, amulets, titles of television shows, etc. Sang Thong, definitely as the Thai people’s favorite story, is an intellectual cultural legacy which has withstood the test of time. (ICH 2015) The story of Sang Thong is popular in the Thai dance form of lakhon nek, and performances of this story date back to the Ayutthaya period, in the seventeenth century. In the nineteenth century, King Rama II adapted and popularized the tale. At one time, lakhon nek was performed in over one hundred casinos around the city of Bangkok (Asian Traditional Theatre and Dance 2010). As an

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art form, lakhon nek bridges the exclusivity of the Thai court and popular audiences, mirroring the themes of Sang Thong. Today, the aesthetics of the puppets together with the company’s version of the story also negotiate traditional and contemporary values. In some of their marketing material, Sema Thai states as its goal for this story (quoted verbatim—English is not their first language): Bringing literature to interpret a new meaning by consistent with the context of Thai community. However there is a contemporary and cosmopolitan. Sema Thai’s performance of Chao Ngor can be understood as a negotiation of traditions and values that mirror the work of the company within Thailand. It is a call for tradition to be accessible, flexible, and for the people. The performance began with music and a conch shell appeared out of the darkness, floating through space. Next to the shell emerged the figure of a young boy. The lyrics (later we learn they are sung by his mother) connected the boy and the shell to nature: The wind blows through the trees It touches your skin and makes your heart uneasy The wind blows from nigh the clouds drift away I watch the clouds sway (Pipthkul 2007) The imagery onstage and suggested by the lyrics supports the importance of nature in Buddhist cosmology. Within Buddhism, the conch shell often represents a “coming together” and is often used to call assemblies of people. The woman is a queen, and dressed well, but the invocation of nature and the conch shell emphasize the importance of simple people and simple things, showing how “specific modes of contemporary modernity in Burma [and the rest of Southeast Asia] are channeled through long-standing relations between villages and towns” (Skidmore 2005:  9). Urban middle-class identity desires to connect with an ideal of village life, nature, and royalty. In contrast to the peaceful melody of the mother’s song, angry voices underscored by threatening melody, declared, “His ways are

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strange. If you let him be born—the village will be in danger. The Queen should be expelled.” Other voices chimed in, “Get away, get away.” These harsh characters faded away, accompanied by an evil laugh. These characters wore courtly clothes and had a refined manner that tied these men to the establishment—they were the voices of authority. The many voices repeating “get away” were not visible—they were the nameless masses who must follow authority without question. These opening scenes of the performance created a dichotomy between nature and village with the city and court, even as the first song expressed a longing for these forces to work together. The queen and the boy, like the middle-class audience, were caught in-between. Thai theatre scholar Parichat Jungwiwattanaporn surveys the history of theatre in Thailand and reveals a similar division between city/court and village within the history of Thai theatre that favors high over low art, or court over folk traditions. Official historical accounts focus almost exclusively court forms such as khon and lakhon nai—and this favoritism is reflected in the art forms that receive financial support from the government and universities. These theatres are seen as part of the system of social hierarchy, or sakdina, and they reinforce hegemonic values (Jungwiwattanaporn 2010: 69–70). Elements throughout the performance and story of Sang Thong negotiate these poles of power and tradition. In the next scene, the queen was in labor. Between gasps of pain, she reassured her unborn son: My baby I do not know what you will look like when you are born, or what you will become. But I want you to know that the world is not as admirable as you might think it is. The people are not as nice. Only remember, that once you are born, you are not alone. Here is a person who will always love you. Oh it hurts so badly—help! Heaven help! (Pipthkul 2007) The mother’s words serve as a warning against current social structures—even though the boy will rightfully be a prince, he originally comes from nature or the village. The sound of the music shifted as an old woman with dark skin appeared to help the queen deliver her baby. The old woman’s red shirt and tattered grey skirt sharply contrasted with the beautiful dress the queen puppet wore. The old woman complicates and reinforces Thai social hierarchy.

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She is kind and wise—the queen would not be able to give birth without the old woman’s assistance. But the old woman is also serving the queen; after the baby was born, she disappeared from the story. The old woman received no payment or thanks for her work. As the boy is born, a male voice narrated the wonder of the moment: Once upon a time a child was born strangely. Every baby is born from his mother. But this boy comes from a thick conch shell, which captures him inside. (Pipthkul 2007) This is the first time the audiences hears the unseen voice, but it appeared several times throughout the performance. The voice reminds the audience that this is a particular telling of a particular story. Sema Thai also changed the name of the boy character from the original story. In most versions he is Sang Thong, but the artists changed his name to Sang Chao, which means “stupid rice.” Pipithkul felt that with this name the character would relate better to common people; Sang Chao would be more accessible. Sang Chao was born, still inside the conch shell. He appeared from the womb dressed in lavish clothes that were white with gold details, but his skin was dark like the old woman’s. Sang Chao’s hair was done in a top knot, suggesting he had the wisdom of Buddha. The boy then spoke his first words: Ah—I was born. I lived a life. I was born. I have a body. I have a happiness. Look I can feel. I can think. I can like. I can love. I can die. I have a life. My mom—wow! (Pipthkul 2007) Sang Chao burst into laughter, as his mother crossed over to stand by the shell. She appealed to him, “My boy, I am so glad you have come into this world. Come to me and embrace me. I  hope this world will also embrace you.” The mother then sung a lullaby to her strange son. In the song the lyrics recall beautiful and happy images from nature. But then she implored him to come out of the shell, to come to her and live in the outside world. The voice-over explained that the mother knows she must hurt her son by removing him from the safety of the shell. Sang Chao came out of the shell, but he was not happy. “Mother you have destroyed my world,” he accused. She

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explained, “There is a world that is bigger. No one can be alone in this world. Listen [and she sings], it is a wonderful world—it is up to your heart.” Much like Thailand as a country, or even the work of Sema Thai, Sang Chao cannot isolate himself in a safe cocoon, or conch shell. The history of Thailand in the last two centuries reveals a balancing act between maintaining sovereignty (Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country never to be colonized) and working with other countries. Sema Thai, even though they draw audiences from their own community, is heavily involved in artistic outreach and international programming. The company has worked with schools in each region of Thailand to start puppet companies and is active in maintaining different kinds of folk puppet traditions such as nang yai or nang tulung (large or small shadow puppet theatre). The company often tours to international festivals, and the production I  watched was performed especially for a visiting delegation from Taiwan. Recently, Sema Thai has been the Asia hosting organization for the Harmony World Puppet Carnival. It is not always easy to negotiate the world outside of your own boundaries. Sang Chao expects to find happiness in this new world, the narrator explained to the audience, and when he encountered some boys his age they are happy to play with him, in spite of his different appearance and manners. The narrator warned, “However, the world outside the conch is not how he dreamed.” The men from the beginning of the play are shown voicing their displeasure to find this strange boy still alive. Not only that, Sang Chao dares to play with their children! The men expressed worry the odd boy will bring danger to their community because of his difference. The tone of the music changed and Sang Chao is transported away and thrown into the water—the underworld to “float, float, float away.” The men believe they have won the battle against this outside intrusion. In the underworld, Sang Chao was adopted by a childless giant, who is able to take human shape. She loves Sang Chao like her own child and vowed to keep him safe and raise him to “become a good man.” Neither the giant nor her adopted son are accepted by the humans of the world. The giant cautioned Sang Chao to remain inside the cave they call home in order to be safe. “You can play wherever you want—but do not go up to the tower. There are terrible things there for humans,” she warned. Sang Chao

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promised to stay away, but he expressed the feelings that if there is something there that is harmful to humans then he should have it for protection against the humans who threaten him. Sang Chao discovers that the world outside the cave is strange, “not like the human world at all,” and there are many frightening creatures inhabiting this world. Strangely shaped puppets like skeletons and other fantastic creatures danced around the stage. These creatures explained to Sang Chao that his foster mother is really a dangerous giant. Sang Chao convinced the skeletons to take him up the tower, but they are frightened. “We were already eaten by the giant. We do not want to be eaten again and again!” Sang Chao faces his fears and climbed to the top of the tower without the help of the strange skeletons. Once Sang Chao reached the top of the mountain, he finds a golden well and decides to dip himself in its waters. The narrator explained the transformation: His body is now covered with gold and he realizes the change. From now on things will never be the same. His life will never be the same. He thought his change would bring safety—but he still felt danger. (Pipthkul 2007) Sang Chao quickly grasped that the gold covering his body makes him vulnerable to thieves and other dangerous people. He looked around and luckily finds a disguise allowing him to appear as an ugly and deformed man. In this strange costume, Sang Chao no longer felt afraid, allowing him to decide to leave the world of giants and return to the land of the humans. The puppet version of Sang Chao dressed as an old man is not a marionette as was used throughout the production. Sang Chao now appears as a rod puppet, which seems strange in comparison to the aesthetics of the show, but the strangeness is also more traditional because this puppet was most like traditional Thai hun. The giant does not want to see her adopted son return to the human world, but accepts fate and offers Sang Chao a spell for protection. The narrator commented, “Even though she is a giant she has a great love.” After Sang Chao left for the human world, the giant is shown to have died from the sadness of missing her adopted son. Sang Chao now travels and lives alone; he was safe, but very unhappy. Sang Chao’s longing demonstrates the importance of

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community, of human interaction within society and culture. But then Sang Chao enters another world, “the world of love,” when he encountered a beautiful princess. The scene with the princess was accompanied by music rather than dialogue. Sang Chao and princess meet and fall in love while he is still disguised as the old man. At that moment, however, Sang Chao revealed his true identity to the princess—showing his gold skin and beautiful clothes. The costume of the princess, and of Sang Chao’s true identity, resembled the costumes worn by dancers in Thai khon. The puppets movements in this scene were similar as well. The court dance of khon is considered the most prestigious of all the arts in Thailand—but its status as tradition has changed. In 1932, Thailand’s government was taken over in a bloodless coup. This diminished the monarchy’s power and established a constitutional government. The period after this revolution has been a constant negotiation between elites and commoners over power and prestige. The khon dancers of the court lost their support, but many of them transferred to positions in the government and, under the Department of Fine Arts, they continued performing and teaching for government functions (Jungwiwattanaporn 2010: 71). Kohn remains the aesthetic center of Thai tradition. By clothing Sang Chao and the princess in the guise of kohn, the performance situated the new tradition of marionettes within the traditions of the past. In the story, the girl’s father was not happy about her beaux because he only saw Sang Chao in his disguise as ugly and different. The father declared that all of his daughters’ husbands, including Sang Chao, must go to sea and bring back a catch of one hundred fish, “otherwise you will die.” The girl’s father was confident that the husbands of his other daughters, his “proper sons-in-law,” would be able to complete the challenge and that Sang Chao will fail. He exclaimed that surely nature would not favor such an ugly thing. The elite, as represented by the father, believe sakdina must prevail; it is the natural order of things. Sang Chao was able to cast a spell that kept the other husbands from catching their fish, and all of the fish were directed toward Sang Chao’s net. Frustrated, the princes taunted and attacked Sang Chao, which tempted him to reveal his true identity. In that moment, the conch shell reappeared, and there was a flashback to the young Sang Chao with his mother. He begged the memory of his mother, “You took me out of the conch shell and these people hurt

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me, what should I do?” His mother replied that she does not know what kind of person he will be, but that she will always love him. The princess then approached and told Sang Chao that it does not matter what he looks like, or if he removes his disguise; she loves him for who he is. She declared that they could live in a little hut in the middle of nowhere and she will remain happy. This conflict could be seen as a conflict between tradition as static, and tradition as new. Sang Chao appears different, but underneath he wears regal dress like the princess’s father and the other husbands. The words from his mother connected him to the past, a queen’s love, even though he is different. At the end Sang Chao and the princess do not try to change their society or tradition, but rather they go into the forest to begin their lives in a new society. Visually, the khon costumes and movements situate this new tradition within the old, but it suggests the possibility for art and people to exist without the hegemonic system of sakdina. Likewise, Nimit Pipithkul believes that there is an artist in every person—most of the members of his troupe did not have any special training in the arts before coming to work with Sema Thai. Cherdchai Kaboonrum makes most of the puppets the troupe uses in performance. He drove a moto, or motorcycle taxi, before working with the company. Kaboonrum commented, “I always wanted to make things, but before, I  had nowhere to learn.” Piewnam Charemyat works as one of the primary puppeteers. She discovered puppetry after her sons had grown up and left the home. She loves working at Sema Thai because “puppetry changes the inner self and brings happiness to other people.” In a suburb of Bangkok, Sema Thai offers a possibility for a new, vital form of puppetry that functions as a new tradition.

Postscript On October 14, 2016, the great monarch of Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, died. The 88-year-old king had been, at seventy years, the world’s longest-reigning monarch. His death indicated a moment of uncertainty for Thai politics and identity—he had been one of few uniting forces in a political landscape that has seen much unrest and change in the last few decades. The succession of the crown prince Maha Vajiralongkorn has been delayed for likely a year,

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when the royal cremation will also be held. The nation has declared a national mourning period for one year, and for months right after the death many performances and festivals were canceled.4 Thailand’s strict leste-majeste laws make discussing the future for the royal court impossible—open discussion of the monarchy is illegal and punishable by years in prison. Puppet performance has long been an important part of funerals in Thailand, and Joe Louis Theatre has given several command performances at the recent funeral celebrations of the king. The Thai king’s involvement in the arts was multifaceted. “First, as the good example of leader of the family; second, as the arts philosopher; third, as the great artist of the nation; fourth, as the divine king; and fifth, as the royal patron of the arts” (Virulrak 1999:  6). In December, Joe Louis was commissioned to give numerous school performances in the wake of the king’s death as a way to connect people to the Thai traditional culture. These performances further enhance the company’s connections to elite “Thai-ness,” which is reinforced by the ways the king had interfaced with the arts when he was alive. After the death of the king, Thai people will have to rethink their identity—they no longer have a constant connection to the past and unity, which the king represented. Heritage, tradition, religion, ethnicity, and city spaces will be negotiated. Whether puppetry lasts as a remnant of the past or a dynamic art form for the future will have to be determined.

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Puppetry and Identity in Virtual Worlds I was surprised to see a photo from the hit television show Star Trek featured on a Facebook post on the wall of the page for “Fusion Wayang Kulit,” an organization working to save the traditional shadow puppet form in Malaysia. The image depicted a photo of the Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh standing in front of a case full of artifacts from earth, including rocks, a vase, and a Javanese wayang kulit figure of Antareja.1 The post on Facebook said: As an Asian Sci-Fi fan, I  am very happy to see that more and more Asian cultural elements are making it into Western Sci-fi movies/shows—in this case, a wayang kulit (“shadow puppet”) figure appearing in the Star Trek Discovery TV series. It’s an added bonus to our delight at seeing our very own Michelle Yeoh—who has already made an impact through her movies, including in the James Bond and Marvel universes—representing Asia as a whole, and Malaysia in particular. It feels good that Asia is getting more recognition. Although Asian countries have always been viewed as being part of a gigantic whole, to a certain extent, it is true—because we share so many cultures amongst us since hundreds of years ago, many of which are still being shared in this day and age. It is worth noting, though, that each country will have their own styles and variations, which are causes for celebration rather than selfishness.

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FIGURE  7.1   Actress Michelle Yeoh sits alongside a wayang kulit figure in the TV show Star Trek Discovery. Source: Star Trek Discovery, episode one: “The Vulcon Hello,” CBS Online, September 24, 2017. Star Online, September 26, 2017. The image is from the pilot episode of Star Trek Discovery. The wayang kulit puppet displayed on the show is Javanese, and I would like to congratulate our near and dear neighbour for this achievement; it is a milestone that all of us in this closelyknit region can be proud of. Now, if you’ll excuse, I need to get back to work; we have a dying art to nurture back to life and glory. Sixteen hours after his post appeared, it had ninety-four likes, eleven shares, and four comments. Two of the comments called for Fusion Wayang Kulit to borrow from Star Trek and design Klingon versus Vulcan puppets. One respondent just wrote “wayang kulit” with a purple heart emoji. The final comment warned, “Wait till Indonesia makes its claims.” Indonesia’s claims to the puppet figure, and possible controversy, had already been anticipated by the local Malaysian media, who contacted Eddin Khoo, the founder and head of the Malaysian traditional cultural organization, Pusaka. In the article, Khoo explains there are “huge cultural differences” between each country’s version of shadow puppetry. Even so, the article proclaimed, “Nevertheless, we are happy to know that a piece of South-east Asian culture was featured in a highly popular American series” (Tang 2017). Like Yeoh herself, the character that Yeoh plays

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is Malaysian/Chinese, and it seems to have been the actress’s idea to put the wayang figure in the character’s room. Similar articles appear in other Malaysian and Indonesian news venues and have been shared widely with scholars, fans, and puppeteers involved in Southeast Asian puppetry. The image, the post, and the reactions from others demonstrate how social media has become a new space for artists and audiences around Southeast Asia to share their work and ideas. As these comments suggest, ownership, heritage, and identity remain key topics in the virtual space, just as they do in the physical spaces. The areas where these discussions are happening may be very new, but the conversation is not. Margaret J. Kartomi explains that the most persistent theme around Southeast Asian performing arts over the last century “is the concern that hundreds of ethnic cultural traditions are dying without documentation as a result of the onslaught of Western arts, especially music, as one Sumatran ethnomusicologist put it, ‘the traditional music weeps’ ” (1995: 367). Many, including myself, challenge the notion that traditions are disappearing; rather, I  interrogate how the idea of tradition has become important in contemporary societies.2 These discourses of heritage and loss are better understood as contributing to the social and economic value of tradition. This section connects the local with the global through social media, recognizing that urban spaces exist not only as built physical structures, but are products of people’s imaginations. It is in these spaces that unique reclamations and promotions of traditional performing arts are happening in diverse ways. Art historian Nora A. Taylor provides a way of understanding space in Southeast Asia as flexible and global: But as I see it, the geography of Southeast Asia is about people. As they move across the globe with increased frequency, it is better to see the world as a movable place that has no fixed vantage point. Artists in Southeast Asia are taking advantage of their intangible borders and their flexible histories as nomadic seafarers and Chinese migrants, and making art that reflects the porous nature of their heritage. (Taylor 2011: 22) Taylor does not explicitly reference social media, but social media offers the kind of unfixed space that she describes. Southeast Asians

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are among the most frequent users of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, primarily because of the extreme increase of smartphone availability (Abbott 2011:  13). Examining social media offers insight into the co-performance between audiences and artists. I use the term co-performance to highlight how meaning is a result of the creative relationship between artist and audience. Meaning does not ever rest solely on the intention of the artist, but is also a product of the cultural context and experience of each person watching the event. Puppet artists use social media to not only advertise, but also to form communities out of those interested in their work. Social media provides new networks to connect performers and audiences, creating a fan culture, requiring artists to brand their work, even in traditional genres. Facebook becomes a platform for discourses beyond, and informing the moment of performance. Performances on TV and online also create new relationships between the viewer and the puppet, complicating ideas of community and local identity.

Social media as a research space I first stumbled upon the idea of using social media in my research by accident. I originally joined Facebook because it offered a way for me to stay connected with family and friends around the world. My early research focused on Balinese wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry, and very few of those artists used social media with any regularity.3 It is only when my interests expanded into other parts of Indonesia and beyond that I began finding that many artists were active on Facebook. Soon, I  was not only connecting with artists I had met, but also finding and “friending” puppeteers and puppet fans that I  hoped to meet. One of my most lucky connections was with Terence Tan, director of Artsolute in Singapore, and the organizer of the ASEAN Puppet Exchange. He responded to my inquiry via messenger, and soon I  was able to fly out to Jakarta in order to meet him and other artists from around the region. That chance Facebook post turned into a dynamic research project following the work of the puppet exchanges.4 The experience also aided my research on this book, because I  now had contacts all over Southeast Asia who would let me come and learn more about their work.

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Over time, I  realized that puppet artists used Facebook as a particular type of performance space—they did not post pictures of their cats or children like most of my American friends do. Facebook, for these artists, functioned as an interactive platform, or stage, to share and advertise their work, to reach out to other artists, and to connect with their fans. Many, but not all, of these posts were in English, demonstrating a desire to reach communities beyond their local or national boundaries. Like cities, social media offers a distinct kind of space that informs the reception and performance of their creative work. I  argue that a network of “friends” and others occupies a space similar to the city because it is “public,” intentional, and articulates a distinct shared identity. Social media offers a rather new site for doing inherently ethnographic research such as this, and in order to better understand how social media might function as an alternative “city space,” I  am going to examine more closely how social media might be conceived and used as a field site. Sally Baker, writing about using social media as a tool in ethnographic research, describes three ways that Facebook can be used: 1 2 3

As a communicative medium (used to participate with participants across time and distance). As data (including the participants’ status updates, message contacts, photos). As context (a shared, observable space that fed into and framed data collection). (2013: 135)

Ethnographic research “involves being with other people to see how they respond to events as they happen and experiencing for oneself these events and circumstances that give rise to them” (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 1995: 2). Throughout my research, I view social media “as a public space where people are often self-consciously creating a public identity and ‘performing’ to meet society’s expectations” (Baker 2013: 136). Social media thus becomes a field site I can inhabit and share experiences as they occur. Many of the readers of this book are likely familiar with Facebook and other types of social media, but still it is useful to outline the functions of Facebook and how I  inhabited them. Facebook also has, and continues to change over time, so my description will also

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provide history and context—similar to how I  explored different cities and parts of cities throughout this book. I focus primarily on Facebook as a site or as a gateway to other types of social media, especially YouTube, because it is the platform most universally used by the artists and is accessible to me. Facebook allows individual users to register and create a page for themselves as an individual, a business, or organization. This page can be accessible and viewed by the public, or the user can select a privacy setting that allows only selected “friends” to view most of the page’s content. A page consists of photos, biographical information such as location, employment, relationship status, and other details. The user can decide what he/she/they wish to share or keep private. The users can also select a photo to represent themselves to other users and a cover photo for the top of their page. Users interact by posting updates, photos, videos, events, or links on their wall where others can see them. Interaction happens when a user “likes” or comments on another person’s status. One person can also send a private message to another user or groups of users. In this chapter I am going to focus on the social media usage of several groups or individual artists in order to explore the different ways social media interacts with art to create a space for distinct identity formation. I will look at Htwe Oo Myanmar Marionettes in Yangon, the Malaysian group Fusion Wayang, and Sovanna Phum in Cambodia. Each group uses Facebook in a different way. I am working from the assumption that images and posts on Facebook can be understood as a presentation of an “ideal self” that the user has constructed to target outside consumption. Unlike human interaction, which offers an uncontrollable number of variables in our physical presentation and things we say, users on Facebook are able to carefully curate what they chose to post and share. Facebook posts are fueled by a desire to belong and find social acceptance (Farquhar 2013: 447). This chapter, like most of this book, is based on my own interactions and connections with the people and performances I study. I am “friends” or part of the groups that I am posting about, and like other ethnographic research, it is an approach to experiencing, interpreting, and representing culture and society that informs and is informed by sets of different disciplinary agendas and theoretical principles. Rather

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than being a method for the collection of “data,” ethnography is a process of creating and representing knowledge (about society, culture and individuals) that is based on ethnographers’ own experiences. It does not claim to produce an objective or “truthful” account of reality, but should aim to offer versions of ethnographers’ experiences of reality that are as loyal as possible to the context, negotiations, and intersubjectivities through which the knowledge was produced. (Pink 1997: 18) This definition of ethnography is useful here for a couple of reasons. First is Pink’s emphasis on the interrelationship between the act of doing research, commonly through participant observation and interviews, and the writing of that research. My participant observation in the virtual world overlaps with writing about that world. It is not a closed or fixed collection of data, because they continue to post and update. Second, Pink recognizes the subjectivity of ethnography: the researcher is presenting a version of “truth” as she is able articulate. More so than my methods for any of the other chapters, the platform of Facebook reminds me of my presence watching, or becoming part of, the conversations and activities I write about.

Puppets and audience-experiencing change in Cambodia In a small, outdoor theatre located about fifteen minutes south, via tuk tuk, of the Tuol Tom Poung (Russian Market) in Phnom Penh, I sat on a wooden bench to watch a performance by Sovanna Phum. After a brief welcome by the group’s founder and leader, Mann Kosal, the lights dimmed and lively music was played by a small group of percussion instruments. The performance began, like most Sbeik thom performances do, with sva prachap, a scene showing the battle between the white monkey and the black monkey. In a Sbeik thom performance, the large shadow puppets depict single characters or scenes. They are not articulated and thus their ability to express story or emotion is limited. These puppets depend on the movements of the dancers manipulating them against the screen to create dynamic movement. The monkeys on the large shadow

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screen finished and were replaced by a talented dancer depicting the role of Hanoman, the famous monkey king from the epic tale of the Ramayana.5 The dancer wore a mask that covered his head and a lavish gold costume. He was joined onstage by another dancer wearing the mask of the black monkey. The movements of the dancers mirrored the movements of the puppets—connecting the important traditions of puppetry and dance together on one stage. This combination would have been unheard of not many years ago in Cambodia, but is part of Kosal’s vision for using Cambodian traditions to speak to the next generation. In an interview, he explained to me that dance functions as a key part to the puppet performance. Without dance, the audience would lose interest, he explained. The next scene further emphasized the connection between dance and shadows. To a soundtrack of contemporary recorded music by the group Dead Can Dance, the shadow of a seemingly mythic creature appeared center. As the music continued, the creature revealed more and more arms, each holding a dynamic pose similar to the statues of the apsara in the National Museum that stand in the central part of Phnom Penh. The image the artists created in shadow was that of the Sadashiva, an ancient depiction of Shiva from the Angkor period. This figure was often associated with King Jayavarman II, whose ascension to the throne marked a new era for the Khmer kingdom (Kumar 2014: 133–4). The contemporary music and innovative approach to combining human and shadow might be understood as an attempt to connect the ancient past to innovative performance. The figures were then engulfed in darkness as the stage light was extinguished. The performers then moved around and behind the audience, drawing the spectators from passively sitting to participating in the world of the performance, because our bodies were now the stage. Shrieks and growls like monkeys sounded like they came from behind and under where we were sitting. Even though the theatre is located in the middle of a busy city, the audience was transported aurally to the jungles of Cambodia’s past. Actors, wearing only black shorts, appeared with flashlights shining around the space. Some performers carried the large leather puppets and the shadows from the puppets hit the screen, the floor, and the bodies of the audience as light, actors, and puppets whirled around the stage and seating area. The effect was highly theatrical and mesmerizing.

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On Sovanna Phum’s frequent Facebook posts, they advertise that they perform a new show every night, which reflects the group’s desire to innovate beyond tradition. Even so, the performance often begins with the sequence of puppetry, dance, and participatory performance that I just described. As I attended the group’s weekly performances over a month and a half during the summer of 2014, I noticed small differences in the production from one week to the next. The performance was evolving over time rather than being drastically rewritten and restaged each week as their publicity might suggest by advertising a “new performance.” The changes on stage reflect the gradual, yet noticeable, changes happening in the city of Phnom Penh and Cambodia more generally. Change takes time and only happens little by little. Facebook and social media became crucial to the survival and development of Sovanna Phum, one of Cambodia’s most consistently active theatre companies. They used Facebook to create a community that eventually brought youth and arts together.

Saving the puppets with social media When I  attended the performance in 2014, there were very few other people with me in the audience. The theatre was small and the wooden benches were not very comfortable to sit upon. There were no Cambodians in the audience, other than the occasional tour guide, on the nights I went to the theatre.6 A small, dusty gift shop off to the side sold puppets and other Cambodian crafts. This did not look like the vibrant theatre company that in 2003 was described by Catherine Diamond, who wrote, “Cambodia’s performing artists may be facing a sea of troubles, but Mann Kosal is one man who has begun to empty it with his own bucket” (174). Diamond indicated that the puppet theatre thrived but, when I visited, the company was clearly struggling. Sovanna Phum (“Golden Village”) Association was founded in 1993 by Mann Kosal and Delphine Kasam, a circus performer from France. The group combined large and small shadow puppetry with dance and technological innovations in order to create a vibrant art form that they hoped would make tradition speak to a contemporary audience. Kosal, a self-taught puppet master, provided artistic direction for the organization. From a

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family of farmers, Kosal did not originally set out for a career in the arts, but attended the University of Fine Arts in order to get a basic education. Trained as a bassac performer, Kosal stumbled upon a box of forgotten puppets in the back of a theatre and that immediately became his passion. He had to teach himself to both make and perform with the puppets—remarkable, because “Kosal has had to piece together remnants of a broken tradition and follow his own intuition” (Diamond 2003: 173). Kasam provided the group with marketing and outreach, but she returned to her native France in the early 2000s for personal reasons. This left a gap in the group’s organizational structure, which made it difficult for them to survive. Yearly, the group receives some support by NGOs to take small shadow puppet (sbeik touch) performances to villages in order to teach about issues such as hygiene, AIDS prevention, and the dangers of drug use. These performances are often the first time audiences have witnessed live theatre (Diamond 2012:  144). Sovanna Phum relies on weekly performance for financial solvency in their small outdoor theatre space. That they even have such a space is a luxury in a city with few spaces dedicated for dramatic performance. Phnom Penh is a city that is changing—completely emptied during the Khmer Rouge, the former ghost town is now seen “as the Ho Chi Minh City of fifteen years ago, the Bangkok of twentyfive years ago, and the Seoul of forty years ago” (Nam 2011: 55–6). Political and economic life are centered here, and with the national museum and Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) also present, the city rivals Siem Reap as a cultural center. Property prices in Phnom Penh have been skyrocketing, and affordability has required Kosal to move his theatre from a central space in the heart of the city to one that is far from where tourists stay or experience culture. The first time I visited, my tuk tuk driver had a very difficult time finding the address; he had never heard of Sovanna Phum. It is fitting that Kosal makes Phnom Penh the home of his company, because the city has been described as “a locus of experimentation” (Nam 2011: 57). Likewise, Sovanna Phum, which strives to preserve traditional art, offers a rare space for artistic innovation. Mann Kosal breaks boundaries in performance style, story, and even who is performing. Sbeik thom, traditionally, was performed only by men. In 2014, I studied sbeik thom with Kosal, and at the start of our first lesson he explained that women are not

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really allowed to even touch the sacred sbeik thom puppets, but because this was his theatre he decided that he would allow women to perform. In spite of Mann Kosal’s open attitude to women performers, there are no women regularly performing with the troupe. In 2014 I met one of his female students, Rithy Lomorkesor, who was just beginning her studies at the RUFA. Her major was architecture, because she felt it was one of the best ways to reinvigorate Cambodia’s traditions. RUFA does not offer a major or even any classes in sbeik thom. She loved puppetry, and her sister Rithy Lomorpich, a media production major, had made an excellent documentary about sbeik thom as her senior thesis. The sisters studied with Sovanna Phum and had performed with the small puppetry troupe. Lomorkesor was hoping to have an opportunity to perform the large puppets as well, but when I spoke with her again in 2016, she was no longer studying or performing puppetry. She explained it was because she was too busy with her major at RUFA. This is a plausible excuse, but many of the male performers with the group manage to balance their studies at RUFA with training and performances at Sovanna Phum. In the years I  have been following Sovanna Phum, I  have never seen women perform as puppeteers.7 Women may not perform with Sovanna Phum, but recently the sisters became crucial to the group’s survival. In May 2016, Kosal publicly announced that the financial and emotional struggle to keep the theatre operating had become too much. His health was also bad. Kosal planned to close the theatre and return to his home village to become a taxi driver. Many in the local arts community and beyond were greatly saddened by this news, and began to think of how to save the only remaining professional puppet group in Cambodia.8 The sisters created a campaign through social media called #5KRiels (5,000 riels equals about US$1.25). Lomorpich explained that 5,000 riels was not a lot of money and it would enable young Cambodians to contribute. She continued, “If Cambodian people do not support their own heritage, it would be a huge shame to lose a Khmer art association which has run for a long time” (Muong and Wilson 2016). It is almost revolutionary the way Lomorpich placed the responsibility to save traditional Khmer culture, as represented through the work of Sovanna Phum, on her fellow Cambodian youth. The project also inspired local companies such as Brown

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Coffee Shop to contribute, and the sisters planned performances and special events as part of the effort. Their success is even more remarkable because rarely have local Cambodian organizations been able to mobilize large groups of young people and raise considerable money without foreign support. The sisters’ work was successful; Mann Kosal announced in September 2016 that Sovanna Phum would remain open. Facebook continues to update with invitations to local audiences, videos and photos of performances, and new outreach events undertaken by the organization. Instead of English only, more of these posts are in both Khmer and English, or even Khmer only. A recent article in the Phnom Penh Post explained how both local and international organizations and artists have rallied around the puppet company and that demand for performances and workshops has never been stronger. The platform of social media was crucial for this mobilization and continues to be the focal point for communication regarding this classical art and its importance to young Cambodian identities.

Navigating the guidebook in Myanmar “My wife jokes that Facebook is my 2nd wife,” shares Khin Maung Htwe. It is true, he is extremely active both on his personal page and on his business page for Htwe Oo Myanmar, the puppet company he and his wife Tin Tin Oo9 run out of their small home in Yangon, Myanmar. The theatre, located in his living room, can only seat fifteen people. Almost daily, they give performances of yokthe thay,10 traditional marionette, or string-puppet. The performances last about forty-five minutes and always begin with a short lecture by Htwe to give some background and context for the performance. Puppetry has a long and distinguished history in Myanmar— historical evidence dates the art form back to 1444, if not earlier (Singer 1992:  2). Htwe remarks in his introduction before a performance that some accounts claim that the puppet tradition is as much as 600 years old. The yokthe thay puppets are about two or three feet in length and are operated with a complicated set of ten or more strings. Traditional performances lasted several nights in order to tell Jataka Tales (stories of the different incarnations of Buddha) that incorporated current events and political intrigue.

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Puppet troupes were a favorite with the royal court and incorporated live music, singers who voiced the characters, and five to seven people to manipulate the amazing puppets. Yokthe thay companies lost court support in 1855, but through different innovations they continued to attract a robust audience and remain financially stable. After independence in 1948, the genre began to struggle because of competition from other types of entertainment, including film and television.11 Htwe worries that a whole generation has lost their heritage of these performing arts and will not develop a sense of creativity. He explained that he and his wife decided to get rid of their television set rather than be part of the mass audiences who watch the latest soap operas from Korea. Htwe does not come from a traditional puppet family, and did not begin his work promoting the art until later in life. He initially hoped to attend medical school, but worried about making his family support such long studies before he could earn an income. Instead, Htwe attended the Yangon Institute of Technology and became a merchant marine officer, which gave him the opportunity to travel to many different countries. At these various locales, Htwe “saw many theatres and entertainment places where both locals and foreigners can enjoy their culture” (Lwin 2011). Thus inspired, Htwe resigned from the merchant marines in 2002 and devoted himself to promoting culture. He began by taking tourists around in a bus, but then opened the marionette theatre in 2006. Htwe and his wife overcame many obstacles and financial difficulties in order to make the performance group a viable business, but Htwe is happy to have realized this dream. The performance that his family gives follows the traditional structure in an abbreviated fashion. The first two characters, the natkadaw and the pageboy, link the spiritual and human worlds that are invoked in the performance. At the beginning of the performance, the natkadaw, the puppet figure of a spirit medium, blesses the performance. Early spiritual practices amongst most people in Burma, before the acceptance of Buddhism or other religions, involved the worship of spirits called nats that can act for good or evil. The person who acts as mediator, a kind of shaman, between the human world and the spirit world occupied by the nats is called the natkadaw. In this opening scene, the puppet bows and dances in front of an offering of fruits and flowers sitting on a stand. The puppeteer shows off his or her skill when the puppet picks

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of the offering stand and dances with it. Htwe’s wife, or daughter, often control this puppet in the performances at his home. At the end of this opening scene, several other puppets, almost identical to the first, come on to join the dance. These puppets demonstrate many special effects such as wiggling their eyebrows or turning around and shaking their backsides for the audience. Next in the performance is the page boy, a sprightly character who dances to welcome the audience, just as the natkadaw welcomed the spirits. The page boy puppet dances a simple dance, and is often one of the first characters a would-be puppeteer will study.12 A few years ago, Htwe Oo Myanmar would use this scene to demonstrate the connection between puppetry and other kinds of theatre in Burma. Htwe’s young daughter Thet Thet would manipulate the puppet while her younger brother Pei Pei would wear a matching costume and dance. I  once laughed that Pei Pei must have been relieved when he got too old to wear the costume and dance with the puppet. In truth, Pei Pei loves performing, and now is an eager player, manipulating the alchemist and other puppets in performance. Htwe also uses the puppet figure of the pageboy to teach the audience about how the Burmese view the puppets. Before the performance he has the puppeteers bring out two puppet pageboys— one is fully dressed and the other is naked. Htwe jokes about the puppet not being decent and apologizes if the naked figure offends anyone. He explains that yokthe thay means “little people” and that the puppets are believed to be alive, “just like you and me.” Because of this, puppet makers strive to accurately represent the puppets as realistically as possible, including making them anatomically correct. The puppeteers also treat the puppets with respect during and after a performance. For example, a puppeteer must be barefoot anytime he or she manipulates a puppet. Also, when the puppets are stored, they are kept with a cloth over their heads in order to keep them from “waking up.” The next characters in a performance include animals like a horse and a series of mythical creatures. This opening sequence ends with the zawgyi (alchemist), who twirls and whirls around the stage. Taken together, these short dances form a ritual sequence, which begins all performances of yokthe thay (Foley 2001a: 72). Htwe explained that traditional puppet performances begin like this because the children enjoy watching the animals and magical creatures. If the show goes

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on all night, children might not be allowed to stay up for the story sequence. These scenes also work well for an international audience, because they rely on spectacle rather than story. These puppets display much of the innovation and expertise of the puppeteer’s craft. For example, one character has an umbrella he can open and close, and in another scene another character jumps on the naga, or serpent, puppet to ride him, flying across the stage. A full-length yokthe thay performance often would dramatize a story often about love and intrigue happening in the court. Htwe nods to this convention by ending his performance with a love duet between a man and a woman. In the history of yokthe thay, puppeteers were not the only artists involved in making a performance. Musicians and two singers would accompany the performance, but Htwe’s company often performs to only recorded music and singing.

Locating puppetry in Myanmar—history and place Kathy Foley argues that in the twenty-first century, “modern forces of tourism and nationalism have promoted the revival of [yokthe thay]” (Foley 2001a:  69). Political events in the last fifty years have greatly influenced the atmosphere and potential of these dual forces to support the arts in Myanmar. Considered one of the most promising and successful countries in Southeast Asia in the 1950s, Myanmar has since undergone a great deal of political upheaval and change. Burma, the older name for the country, was recognizable as a nation around eleventh century and was completely colonized by the British in 1885. Ruled as part of British India, the colonizers deepened existing ethnic divides in order to bolster their authority. Independence came in 1948, but creating a unified country proved difficult. In 1962 General Ne Win overthrew the government and implemented his “Burmese Way to Socialism,” which left the country impoverished and in ruins. General Ne Win also changed the name of the country from Burma to the literary name of Myanmar. The subsequent military governments have been oppressive to both the economy and to free expression. Theatrical performance is not the only realm to suffer. Htwe told me that the military government, with its strict controls on free speech and public gathering, has been especially destructive for this art. Catherine Diamond confirms—“The

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government views theatre with suspicion” (2012: 187). Htwe joked that because the Burmese government resented being called “a puppet government” by so many world leaders, the government often discriminated against the local traditional puppet arts. He said that he tried giving flyers advertising their programs to hotels, but they would refuse to display his flyers for fear of censorship or trouble from the authorities. The perception of government censorship that Htwe feels in Yangon contrasts with what might appear to be government support for the arts as part of a nationalist agenda. In 1993 the University of Culture was established outside of Yangon with yokthe thay as one of the possible majors. In 1995, the government added yokthe thay to the arts represented in yearly competitions. The government was seen as supporting local arts and culture, especially those that reflect Buddhist Burmese culture, as a stance against Western influence (Foley 2001a:  75–6; Douglas 2005:  229). Government support does not mean that there is an environment for expansion, whether economically or creatively, in the arts. Rather than bolstering the arts and artists, the interest taken by the government has limited and marginalized traditional culture. Gavin Douglas sums up the paradoxes of the situation well: Patronage of the traditional arts is one of the many ways that the present dictatorship valorizes pre-colonial Burmese culture. A strong emphasis on traditional culture and values permeates the rhetoric of the state-controlled media, yet little or no public discussion is permitted as to what constitutes the “traditional culture.” In the new cultural institutions, key elements of precolonial life are carefully selected and emphasized while others are deliberately omitted. This is a conscious attempt to redirect and redefine national identity in the historical record away from historical record [. . .] towards an identity based more closely upon submission to royalty and adherence to unchanging tradition. (2005: 230) Puppet companies might tour internationally in order to represent Burmese culture, but none of these programs help foster a sustainable local audience. Htwe’s company does not receive official government support, so he must scramble to make a living performing for tourists.

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Yangon, the home of Htwe Oo Myanmar, is Myanmar’s largest city and most active port. Yangon was the capitol of the country until 2005 when the military junta government moved the capital to Naypyidaw. The new capital was a planned city with wide highways, reliable electricity, golf courses, shopping malls, high rises, and free Wi-Fi. Naypyidaw is said to have cost over US$4 billion to build, and is four times the size of London. The city, however, is described as a ghost town, and has been unable to attract residents or tourists (Millington 2017). In contrast, Yangon is booming—rents are rising, tourist numbers are increasing, and construction is happening everywhere. Daniel Brook notes that “coming soon” signs dot the city as buildings from both the colonial past and military government undergo renovation and change. The government is changing too; in 2014 a new constitution was written and in 2015 there were democratic elections. “The city is taking the leap into democratization and hyper-urbanization simultaneously” (Brook 2014). City officials in Yangon must determine how the city might reflect and honor the past while looking toward the future. There are several ongoing controversies surrounding how to renovate or use several key government buildings that were built during the colonial and military periods. Since the government has moved from Yangon, these buildings no longer serve the same purpose, and currently sit vacant. Some people wish the buildings to be sold to private developers who will maintain their architectural integrity while repurposing them for commercial use like hotels. Felix Girke terms this kind of approach as “thin heritage,” which is general rather than particular, mostly oriented towards age, aesthetics, and a sense of importance or at least uniqueness. It does not address the question of lived heritage, of particular local stance towards buildings in which, after all, people work and live, or at least used to. (2015: 75) Girke contrasts thin heritage with “thick heritage,” which recognizes everyday and changing uses that resonate locally instead of globally (2015:  75). Thick heritage reflects lived experience and practical use, while thin heritage offers an idealization of a frozen past that is only surface-deep. The discourses surrounding city spaces in Yangon are not very different from the discourse surrounding traditional arts. Each

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has a history of use and value based on hegemonic forces that currently favor a kind of “thin heritage” approach. Within these different factors the artists, like the stakeholders in the historic buildings, must struggle in order to articulate and determine uses and aesthetics that would better serve the local people; they struggle for a “thick heritage.” I will examine how Htwe’s use of Facebook promotes the “thin heritage” of yokthe thay, in contrast to some of the more innovative creative work and outreach in which the company also participates. Htwe’s work demonstrates how thin and thick heritage approaches might support and complement each other rather than working in opposition. Heritage is often cast as tradition marketed for tourists: “Heritage is critical to tourism, motivating travelers and forming a basis for industry products and services, and as well as being a key component in destination marketing campaigns” (Henderson 2009:  74). Heritage is also used by governments and people to formulate national and local identities. Heritage offers “a source of meaning and experience” (Ismail, Ling, and Shaw 2006: 161) that connects past and present. Htwe Oo Myanmar depends on a tourist audience to survive, and thus must promote their performance as a readily available experience of authentic heritage for a global audience. The intended audience for much of Htwe’s Facebook presence are past and potential foreign tourists. In this way, his use of Facebook works much like the guidebook. The guidebook is the tourist’s first tool to having the perfect vacation. It gives a lot of useful information: what are the good hotels, where to eat, and what to see. The guidebook bestows upon the tourist the status of “expert” before he or she ever sets foot at the destination. Today, few people carry around these heavy books that promise insider information on hotels, restaurants, and cultural activities. Google, TripAdvisor, and Facebook have replaced the guidebooks for contemporary travelers. A typical example of a post reads: “Secret find” One of those experiences that make you feel like you’ve scratched below the touristy surface. A small stage in a private home of traditional puppet makers/performers who are the last holders of generations of traditional puppetry. An intimate performance of true talent. When we experienced a live

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traditional Myanmar dance a week later we realized it was very like, and not at all superior to, the puppet theater performance. Not to be missed. (TripAdvisor Review posted on the Facebook page of Htwe Oo Myanmar, September 14, 2016) Htwe no longer waits to be discovered by a writer backpacking around different countries; social media, where he can both publish and interact, now offers potential visitors the “inside scoop.” Positive reviews of the performance and experience are accompanied by photographs. There are primarily three types of photographs that appear on the feed of Htwe Oo Myanmar and Htwe’s personal page, but very few of them are of actual performances.13 One is a shot of the audience watching the performance—Htwe has a camera, like a security camera, hanging above the stage with which he can take these photographs. These photos are often are strange in appearance because the angle from above is awkward and the people in the picture do not know they are being photographed. Unlike people posing for a picture, the people in these photos seem devoid of expression. The bodies do not communicate pleasure or pain, they are like documentation of bodies in a space rather than capturing a moment of action; the photos are recording information about who attends the performance. Most of the people in the pictures are white (European, Australian, or American most likely) or Asian (Japanese or Chinese tourists). I have watched Htwe’s feed for over a year, and never do the photos seem to capture local audience members from Myanmar. The audience photographs on Htwe’s Facebook become evidence of people having attended the event; the tourist did not take or even really participate in these photographs. These images challenge how Susan Sontag describes the usual relationship between photographs and tourism: Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs. The very activity of taking photographs is soothing, and assuages general feelings of disorientation that are likely to be exacerbated by travel. Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter. Unsure of other responses they take a picture. This gives shape to the experience: stop, take a photograph, move on. (1973: 9–10)

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These photographs enhance, rather than diminish, feelings of disorientation. The tourist is not collecting the photos, but rather Htwe photographs the tourist as evidence of being watched. If his Facebook feed contained only photographs used to advertise the performances, in a traditional sense, perhaps Htwe’s theatre would not be doing as well. Potential visitors see his proven popularity and come visit it in order to see for themselves. In contrast to the expressionless images of people watching the performance, Htwe also posts smiling faces of members of the audience sitting with the puppets (Figure  7.2). These pictures are

FIGURE 7.2   An example of Htwe Oo’s Facebook page.

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carefully posed and capture the best of both the audience members and the details of the puppets. If “images serve as filters of how we see and are seen in the world, tinting our perceptions about our peers, building a bricolage of our understanding and assumptions about the other, and looking back at us to inform our self-concept” (Knochel 2013: 17), then these images invite the viewer to desire the happiness of experiencing the puppets so close. Rather than portray the puppets as something sacred, ancient, and unknowable—as tradition from another culture—the happy tourists sitting with the puppets emphasize how accessible they are to an international audience. The tourist and the puppet sit for a photo like friends. Notably, Htwe is often the one taking the photographs; they are not selfies. The final type of photographs, and sometimes videos, are of the visitors trying to learn to manipulate the puppets. Even though these often reveal how clumsy the foreigner is when confronted with traditional Burmese culture, these photos and videos also speak to a trend in international tourism to seek out authentic, cultural experience. Through manipulating the puppet, the tourist is engaging in the kinds of methods used by anthropologists to experience and “know” other cultures—such as participant observation. This kind of tourism “invited tourists traveling to developing countries to play the role of the adventurous anthropologist-discoverer” (Salazar 2013:  671). The photos, as posted on social media, play into the imagination of the would-be visitor. “While analogue photography recorded life as it was lived, social media can be used for the opposite purpose of envisaging a life to which people aspire, articulating this far more effectively in visual terms than they could in words or text” (Wang 2016: 58). Many of the reviews on Facebook, taken from TripAdvisor, describe Htwe Oo as a “hidden gem,” which speaks to the allure that unique experiences still hold for tourists. Articles appear in travel magazines urging tourists to seek “real” destinations and to shy away from commercial experiences. The three types of photographs in Htwe’s page exploit this desire and therefore reinforce yokthe thay as thin heritage. The relationship between tourist and the disappearing art reflected in the puppet becomes a primary marketing tool. Htwe uses the photographs to invite the tourist into his home and culture—as I’ve outlined, he takes different tropes from tourism and tourist photography in order to communicate his message.

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Tourism, through anthropology, thus turns culture into commodity: “The anthropological account is itself vulnerable to co-optation by promoters in their rhetorical creation of a particular people’s touristic cachet. It is not just culture that is susceptible to corn-modification, but also the very anthropological knowledge regarding it” (Douglas and Lacy 2005:  122). In this case, however, the knowledge is not being produced or shared by an outsider. Rather, Htwe unwittingly manipulates the tropes of anthropological tourism in order to keep his theatre full. Social media might be mass media, but its personal nature still fosters an attitude of discovery. Htwe uses the marketing and revenue from their daily tourist performances in order to support using yokthe thay as “thick heritage.” He desires to not only preserve, but also to innovate the tradition in order to make it relevant and interesting for contemporary local audiences. He and his wife have designed and created puppets in modern dress in order to tell stories that were relevant to contemporary life in Myanmar. He has made puppet figures of himself and family. At a workshop in Penang, he explained that “designing the puppets for modern characters required rethinking the body. The other puppets are for dancing . . . but that body position would be odd for modern characters. So we studied other puppets from the world and then came up with how to make the puppet. It is easier than dancing puppets—to make it walk. It is also based on traditional style. So we need to continue to develop our technique to make puppets that will work for modern stories.” In addition to imagining a modern Myanmar puppet performance, Htwe also does outreach to the village he is from. At least once a year he takes his company there to do a performance for the children at the school. In 2016 I was able to accompany him, and the children were an enthusiastic audience. Htwe hopes that as the government is changing, he will be free to do more performances at schools in Yangon. Recently, in 2018, I have observed more photos on Facebook documenting school performances. These photos are stylistically quite different from the other three, and feature shots of both the children in the audience (from behind) and the performance on stage. Just as the city of Yangon negotiates how to balance economic and cultural needs for the future, artistic heritage like yokthe thay continues to face the same challenges. Social media provides a focal point for bringing together the thin and thick heritage of Htwe Oo’s work.

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Star Wars and wayang: Consuming tradition Fusion Wayang was the brainchild of Tintoy Chuo and Take Huat, as a means to realize their desire to reconnect Southeast Asian youth with the traditional art of wayang kulit in Malaysia. They thought that by combining the ancient art form with popular stories and characters it would be possible draw a larger audience; as Chuo often explains, “Even my grandfather knows Darth Vader.” In order to develop this idea, in 2012 Chuo and Huat met with the Official Star Wars Malaysian Fan Club, who eventually helped them contact LucasFilm Ltd. in order to obtain official approval to use the characters and stories from Star Wars. Fusion Wayang first performed a twenty-minute version of Peperangan Bintang, or Star Wars Wayang in 2013. After the first show, the group has received numerous invitations to give performances and participate in exhibitions in both famous galleries and at shopping malls. Chuo notes that many local media outlets have been extremely supportive to their endeavors, but that social media has been key to the group’s success. Social media even introduced the group to Muhammad Dain Othman, a master dalang in Kelantan, the region of Malaysia best known for its traditional arts (Aquila Style 2015). The group has recently added DC comic superheroes, Japanese anime characters, and Transformers to its expanding lineup of contemporary wayang characters. Wayang kulit in Malaysia, much like its counterpart in Indonesia, consists of small, two-dimensional puppets carved from leather that play against a screen. The Malay version shares influences from both Java and Siam (Thailand) and is referred to most commonly as wayang kulit Kelantan in honor of the region it comes from.14 The performances weave local myth and folktale into stories based primarily on the Hindu epic of Ramayana. As described by Anker Rentse in the 1930s, wayang in Kelentan was popular entertainment used for many important occasions like weddings or other celebrations. A  full performance would span seven nights and was a popular event (Rentse 1936: 285–6). The Hindu elements were not limited to the story and characters, but permeated every part of the performance and its meanings. For example, the opening of a performance was a ritual honoring of the spirits of good and evil together with ancient gods, which included

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offerings and religious symbols. Rentse describes that these Hindu elements intermingled within a greater Islamic context and provide a frame for understanding how the past and present might honor and support each other. “The performance begins when To’ Dalang then recites to his guests the Muslim story of the creation of the universe and tells how at its creation Sang Yang Tunggal, the One God of an older faith, ascended to heaven where he and his followers practice austerities” (Rentse 1936:  289). Throughout the performance, and even in the stories describing the origin of wayang Kelantan, there are mixed together many different mystical and Islamic elements. One myth even describes how the Prophet Mohammad gave shadow puppetry to the people of the world (Wright 1981: 58). Most accounts of wayang kulit Kelantan change their tone toward the end of their description. Commonly, the authors conclude, “Colonialism and subsequent modernisation and urbanisation, the decline of court patronage, and the advent of new forms of entertainment (especially electronic) have all contributed to a steady fall in popularity” (Brennan 2001: 305). Rentse puts it more bluntly: “Wayang kulit is dying, killed by western ideas and, especially, by the Cinemas” (1936: 300). Even Beth Osnes in a more recent book length study of wayang kulit Kelantan ends with a sense of regret for an art form that is disappearing in its home context. She laments that her teacher Dalang Hamzah Awang Amat and other key artists have passed away in the past few years without leaving anyone to carry on their legacy as performers. Osnes, however, also writes about her hope that vibrant performance genres like wayang kulit will find new homes in international or academic contexts (2010: 158–62). Osnes argues that wayang kulit Kelantan might need to think outside of Malaysia for how to appeal to contemporary audiences. Through most of its history, Islamic Malays embraced plural identities and religious beliefs as expressed in the performing arts— religion, culture, and politics were seen as separate entities (Brennan 2001: 304). Since the 1980s, religious leaders have preferred more conservative, “international” interpretations of Islam that are not compatible with traditions that are rooted in non-Islamic aesthetics and stories. These religious leaders desired Malaysia to follow ad-deen, or the Islamic way of life, where “Islam is not simply a religion that participants can find in the mosques, but is a tradition

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with the potential to be relevant to every aspect of social life” (Brennan 2001:  303). Viewed this way, religion becomes not just part of identity, it is identity. Ethnic identity, in a diverse nation with a large population of Chinese, a minority population of Indian, and Malay people making up just over half the population, is a contentious issue. Ethnic Malays hold most of the political power in the country, and a key part of their identity is religious—to be Malay is to be Muslim. The locations of the great city Kuala Lumpur and the region known as Kelantan are geographically separated, very different in their makeup, but intertwined within how Malays imagine their identity. Kelantan is located on the northeast coast of the peninsula and remains primarily agricultural with a village lifestyle intact. The population in Kelantan is primarily ethnic Malay, but locals speak a different dialect of Malay language that is barely comprehensible to those living in the city. Islam and arts together were considered essential elements to the Kelentanese identity (Wright 1981: 52). In 1990 the relation of arts to Kelantan was put under attack when the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS; Pan Malaysian Islamic Party) was elected. The party desired to transform Kelantan into an Islamic state and immediately started implementing strict measures such as requiring men and women to use separate checkout lines at the supermarket. Traditional performances like wayang and the dance-drama mak yong were banned, as part of a desire to purify local culture from alien/Hindu elements (Hoffstaedter 2009: 529). New versions of these arts, sanctioned by the PAS government, attempted to replace Hindu elements with Islamic ones, but were not successful. Artists now find themselves in a battle between the local authorities, who are suppressing the arts, and the national government that seeks to capitalize on these traditional arts as national culture and for tourism. The government has received UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage designation for mak yong, and is seeking the designation for other arts. Globalization is at once a threat to local culture and Islamic ideas and also a possible savior, offering financial and other support (Hoffstaedter 2009: 553). Fusion Wayang navigates these multiple contexts of city and village, traditional and new, while circumnavigating complex religious and ethical values. Through its combination of global popular culture, such as Star Wars and Transformers, with the traditional aesthetics and structures of wayang Kelantan, Fusion

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Wayang is seen as a possible savior for this unique cultural form.15 Change and innovation is not new for wayang kulit Kelantan. The genre most often tells the story of the Malay version of the Ramayana. There are two versions of the Ramayana in Malaysia, which wayang draws upon, in addition to Thai and Javanese renditions of the story. The performance tradition for puppetry is primarily oral, passed from teacher to student, with changes made to suit the needs of performers and audience. Over time the performances have gotten shorter, the number of characters typically used has reduced, and puppeteers often tell the story “through free improvisation, the action generously peppered with humor and pathos” (Yousof and Khor 2017: 2). In addition, the puppets themselves have changed. Based on a collection from around the 1900s housed at Cambridge University, the puppets used to be thicker, cast only black shadows, and were simpler in design (Kheng Kia 2009: 424). Comparatively, puppets today are made of thin enough leather to cast a colorful shadow, and the designs are more detailed and elaborate. Social media has become a crucial space in Fusion Wayang’s efforts to market their performances and exhibits locally while gaining currency on the global market. Unlike many traditional artists I  have met in my travels throughout Southeast Asia, who often talk about doing their art for love and not for money, Fusion Wayang is extremely conscious of the financial potential of their puppets. I  do not know what they charge for a performance or exhibit but, when I  sought to purchase several puppets, the price they quoted was over US$2,000 per puppet. This is quite a difference from the US$100–200 that I  often pay for traditional puppets of similar quality from other puppet makers. Fusion Wayang uses social media deliberately to market not only their wayang, but also to educate and promote Malaysian wayang more generally. In doing so, wayang transforms from a declining tradition to an important marker of Malaysian identity that is available for consumption globally. The Fusion Wayang page has over 7,000 likes, but much of the content reflects that Fusion Wayang is part of even larger media conversations. At least once a month the group posts a link to a news video or article that features their innovative approach to tradition. Through Facebook, wayang becomes a practice of

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everyday life, the raw material from which most popular culture constitutes itself. Every act of consumption is an act of cultural production, for consumption is always the production of meaning. At the point of sale the commodity exhausts its role in the distribution economy, but begins its work in the cultural. Detached from the strategies of capitalism, its work for the bosses completed, it becomes a resource for the culture of everyday life. (Fiske 1989: 35) The viewers of the group’s wall are able to react and interact, which creates and recreates the meanings of the puppets and puppet practices the group posts. In order to analyze the ways Facebook becomes a space for meaning making about wayang and Malaysian identity, I am going to return to my initial proposition that social media functions as an alternative urban space. Like the city, Facebook “ ‘allows’ a certain play within a system of defined places” (Certeau 1984: 106). Guiding my analysis is Michel de Certeau’s “Walking the City” from The Practice of Everyday Life. In this chapter he examines how the spatial and signifying practices are determined within “the believable,” “the memorable,” and “the primitive” (1984:  105). Each of these frameworks offers specific insight into how the walking in the city performs and ascribes meaning. Certeau concludes that cities have meaning because of the users who pass through and inhabit their structures. Likewise, the users, both the artists of Fusion Wayang, and the audience who interacts with the site, work together to create the meaning of wayang. Reading the wall, liking, or commenting are all methods of inhabiting the structures of Facebook. Certeau writes that the idea of “believability” is what makes the city habitable—believability references the foundational structures: the streets and buildings. Thus in social media platforms such as Facebook, believability is inherent to the structure of the media platform. Facebook defines certain relationships and rules of interaction among the users in its digital environment, just as the streets and sidewalks of the city determine how people move and interact. The tradition of wayang Kelantan also functions like the streets of the city in that it offers the user a base structure from which to draw. Tradition is a kind of structuring authority, it allows humans to make sense of the past and gives them a basis for action

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(Pieper 2008:  23). The elements of wayang Kelantan are like the “stories and legends that haunt urban spaces” (Certeau 1984: 106). The work and believability of Fusion Wayang depends on its having a defined relationship to tradition. “Memorable” refers to how the tradition of wayang Kelantan interacts with the figures from Star Wars and superheroes in the imagination of the user. Certeau describes memory as “the verbal relics of which the story is being composed, being tied to lost stories and opaque acts, [which] are juxtaposed in a collage where their relations are not thought, and for this reason they form a symbolic whole” (1984: 107). Like Americans, Malaysians grew up watching the Star Wars movies—the characters and stories of those films are more familiar to most than the ancient puppets and stories. The Star Wars fan club in Malaysia has an active membership that organizes special events and conventions around the films. Thus, popular culture becomes the verbal relic that offers a means to combine with tradition to provide a new whole. In order to integrate memory with the traditional puppets, the artists had to carefully consider the sources they manipulated in the creation of the fusion characters. In 2016 I met with Chuo at a mall in Kuala Lumpur to learn more about their creative process. Chou explained that like other Southeast Asian arts, the most important character distinction in wayang is between refined and unrefined. A refined character will generally have smaller features; a smaller, more graceful body; and a closed mouth. An unrefined character is bigger, has big eyes, nose, and body, and often shows his teeth. For example, the character of Darth Vader was reimagined as Sangkala Vedah in wayang. The puppet figure has vicious teeth where his mask sits over his mouth. His eyes are round and red. The armor mixes the style from the movie with Malaysian details such as purple flaming arm bands (Figure 7.3). In contrast, Princess Leia, or Tuan Puteri Leia, has small eyes, a closed mouth, and a smaller frame. Her signature side-buns clearly communicate the character to the audience. Maintaining the tradition of wayang Kelantan is important to Chuo, and he often points to the dalang Dian as evidence that they are getting it right. Chuo exclaimed, “Whatever we do, we know that it’s correct. We don’t want to be messing about” (Mayberry 2014). The final aspect of the city that Certeau invokes is “the primitive,” that is, “to practice space is thus to repeat the joyful and

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FIGURE  7.3   An image from Fusion Wayang. Photo by Fusion Wayang, used with permission. silent experience of childhood; it is, in a place, to be other and to move toward other” (1984: 110, italics in original). Interacting with Fusion Wayang on Facebook invokes a playful engagement with the puppets and Malay culture. For example, a series of posts teases the viewer about the new wayang character that will be based on a Japanese anime character. The image is a close-up on what looks like an unpainted leather leg, with the phrase, “threat approaching.” Another post features part of a wing. Finally, it is revealed that the mystery figure is Perajurit Rugut, which looks something like a headless ostrich. Another series looks at the puppets and process of making puppet versions of the Irish comedians Ed Byrne and Dara O’Brian to use in a TV special called “Dara and Ed’s Road to Mandalay.” The puppet characters posted on Facebook inspired a few people to comment, “Someday I wish to be famous enough to have a wayang character made.” Each of these different examples demonstrates the playful interaction of the viewer with the content of the page. Through this interaction the viewer is able to combine the tradition of wayang Kelantan with his own childhood memories.

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Social media offers a place to “be other and to move toward other,” meaning that the viewer experiences tradition and modernity together in a contemporary Malay identity. Social media, like public spaces in the city, provide places for people to interact and define community. Public and private converge in an environment constructed by its users. Like city spaces, the ways people interact online provide community and identity. “The internet is defined by an ongoing process of meaning making, a process through which the internet is socially constructed through its use” as a kind “of symbolic reality” (Hinton and Hjorth 2013:  38–9). Southeast Asians engage in these networks in a variety of ways. The relationships between social media, art, and performance are only beginning to be studied.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Conclusion—Puppet Exchanges and Regional Identity in George Town

Outside the Municipal Town Hall Building in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, stood a circle of about 140 sculpted bear statues (Figure 8.1). Each measured about six feet in height, and their arms were stretched up into the air as if holding hands. The bears were painted in bright colors to represent 140 different countries from around the world. A  nearby inscription read, “We have to get to know each other better . . . it makes us understand one another better, trust each other more, and live together more peacefully.” Around the bears people walked, sat on the park benches, or grabbed a bite to eat at a nearby food stand. The bears, known as the United Buddy Bears, form a traveling art installation that began in Germany in 2002 and has since traveled the world to share their message of peace and harmony. The bears display the work of individual artists from each country: “The international artists’ different styles are joined together in one work of art, spreading zest for life. The diverse design of the Buddy Bears—always typical for the respective countries—enables the visitors to experience a journey around the globe.” The Malaysian location for the United Buddy Bears reflected values of cultural heritage and diversity. The island of Penang, named

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FIGURE 8.1   The United Buddy Bears in George Town, Penang, Malaysia. Photo by the author. for the betel-nut palm, was occupied by the British in 1786. Almost uninhabited, the British established the city of George Town with the idea it would serve as the primary gateway for the East India Company. George Town was overshadowed by Singapore around 1819, but still functions as an important port. The island is known both for its robust manufacturing sector and as a tourist destination, earning it the nicknames of both “Silicon Valley” and the Malaysian “Pearl of the Orient” (Ling and Shaw 2009: 52–3). Like the rest of Malaysia, the island’s main ethnic groups are Malay, Chinese, and Tamil (Indian), but Penang also has a large multiethnic population that includes Europeans, Cantonese, Arabs, and other local minorities.1 The bears, together with the location of George Town, offered an ideal foreground to the work going on inside the Municipal Town Hall Building where puppet artists from around Southeast Asia were gathered for a workshop to share and create together. Throughout this book I have discussed how cities offer meaningmaking spaces to the arts. Each of these different performances or

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exhibitions resonates with the city spaces in which they reside in order to communicate ideas to their audiences. The arts, however, are also part of how spaces in the city reflect meaning and societal ideals. George Town demonstrates how “quality of urban life has become a commodity as has the city itself in a world where consumerism, tourism, cultural and knowledge-based industries have become major aspects of the urban political economy” (Harvey 2008: 31). Arts and performance complement the urban landscape; they allow cities to connect locally and globally. Many different concerns of heritage preservation and aesthetic/use considerations that relate to the puppet arts are relevant and applicable to city spaces in Southeast Asia (Yeoh 2005:  949). Both city spaces and cultural performance are affected by modernity: “The twin processes of capitalist expansion and increasing global cultural replication on one hand, and the rise of unique configurations of nationality, ethnicity, tradition, and cultural authenticity on the other.” Identity is an especially salient “modern” concern that occupies politics and people in the twenty-first century (Goh 2002: 21). In this conclusion, I look at how puppet artists gathered together from around the region; their different styles of puppetry and the production they made brought together many of the themes and concerns addressed throughout this book. APEX, or the ASEAN Puppet Exchange strives to contribute to the realization of the ASEAN Community through collaborative artistic process. Like the bears, puppet artists were brought together to share and use their unique arts in order to express ideals of community and “One ASEAN.” The idea of One ASEAN articulates the desire of the different countries in Southeast Asia to collaborate to strengthen the region’s economy and sense of security. The workshops and resulting performances of APEX are part of other recent efforts to create a community of Southeast Asia, one of the most diverse regions in the world. Eleven countries contain multiple religions, hundreds of languages and ethnicities, various political systems, and distinctive cultural traditions. Creating an entity that stressed interdependence and collaboration while maintaining strong individual national identity has been a core value since the original ASEAN charter in 1967. Thirty years later, ASEAN revitalized its original principles in a plan called “ASEAN Vision for 2020” based on three pillars: political security, economic cooperation and

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development, together with a strong regional identity grounded in shared heritage and culture. The ASEAN Community was launched in December 2015, when a new plan, “ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together,” was developed. Together with the efforts to strengthen economic and political ties in the region, there is a conscious effort to develop and articulate an ASEAN identity. The motto for ASEAN, “One vision. One identity. One community” clearly states this value. In a region with so many languages, ethnicities, and vast economic differences between countries, it is difficult to forge a single identity. The ASEAN Vision document that was drafted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, further stated, “We envision the entire Southeast Asia to be, by 2020, an ASEAN community conscious of its ties of history, aware of its cultural heritage and bound by a common regional identity” (qtd. in Jones 2004: 141). Jones concludes that what ASEAN is asking for is “for all citizens to reconceptualize how they think of themselves as citizens, to what community they belong, and how they relate to the wider set of communities regionally” (2004: 143). Language, culture, and education are all described within ASEAN documents as important parts of the community-building process, and Jones argues that these also are vital to creating strong national communities, which are the backbone to a strong regional community (2004: 146–7). Like the different cases examined throughout this book, these concerns tend to favor urban, ethnic majorities within each nation. Like in the creation of the ASEAN Community, APEX negotiates many different financial, social, and cultural dynamics. The project was initiated by Terence Tan, who runs the Singaporean arts advocacy organization Artsolute. The ASEAN Foundation provides funding and logistical support together with other organizations such as the Japan ASEAN Foundation. Funding the exchanges was crucial to the process because most of the artists could not afford to travel without support. Additionally, time away from their home companies reduces revenue and therefore APEX works to offer small stipends for participation. Much of the financial support for APEX came from the Japan ASEAN Solidarity Fund, which exists to promote understanding between Japan and ASEAN. This money was administered through the ASEAN Foundation, which helped select locations for exchanges and secure logistics. Artsolute, under the leadership of Tan, provided the logistical and intercultural leadership for APEX.

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Seeking support outside of ASEAN changes the nature of the exchange. Japan required Japanese artists to be part of the process and performances, affecting the types of puppetry and possibly unintentionally creating a performance that reflects ASEAN’s dependence on outside support. The hosting companies in each country also provide a great deal of organizational support and planning. APEX had funding in 2015 and 2016 to host a series of workshops and performances that were hoped to develop into a One ASEAN Show that could be presented at various regional and international venues. There were exchanges in Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia. Early exchanges started small; puppeteers from four or five countries came together. The exchange in Malaysia had representatives from nine different countries, and it was the second attempt to make music an integral part of the process.2 The efforts of APEX are not unique; Matthew Isaac Cohen observes a conscious desire to engage with the ASEAN Community happening in arts organizations around the region, from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur (2014: 352–6).3 The theme for the APEX in George Town was “APEX Live.” Jodi Theile, one of the project facilitators from Artsolute in Singapore, explained that each exchange was developed around a theme in order to inspire the creative process. Previous exchanges had themes such as light, water, and fire. Theile explained, “We started framing that with the idea of what is important to our lives, what gives us meaning, and why is puppetry important to our life.” The “our” Theile employs in her explanation refers to the people of Southeast Asia. Theile is originally from Australia and has lived a few years in Singapore, but her use of “our” demonstrates the fluidity of notions of identity for the region. In spite of various efforts by different governments, Southeast Asian identity resists being essentialized. The process to develop the story for APEX Live happened in multiple steps. A  small group of puppeteers met in Bangkok to discuss the theme and some of the potential issues that could be expressed in a story. From those meetings, it was decided it should tell the story of a child in Southeast Asia who encounters various problems in his or her life, but is saved through the art of puppetry. On October 16, 2016, the artists from nine countries began discussing some of the problems they might address in the production.4 Several countries suggested that the environment, lack of resources, and pollution, might be part of the story. Sophal, from

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Cambodia, expressed concern that gambling and addiction were key problems in their society. Artists from Laos PDR and several others said that poverty and child labor were primary concerns. Wandi, from Singapore, gave the idea that the value of family should be communicated in the story. Almost all of the artists agreed that it was important to communicate the value of puppetry within the production: “We want to tell the audience that this child learned something by watching the puppet performance.” The performance had to accommodate shadow and non-shadow puppets of various sizes. There were wayang kulit from Indonesia and Singapore, small marionettes from Myanmar, large shadow puppets from Cambodia, and many others of various shapes and sizes. A  large screen for shadow puppetry covered the length of the stage, with space in front. The puppeteers had room backstage to stand close to the screen, or far away, which allowed them to manipulate the size of the shadow cast by the puppet. Standing near the screen cast a smaller shadow, while holding the puppet closer to the light source enlarged the shadow. Throughout the performance the puppeteers tried different configurations of live performers, shadow puppets, and interactions between the two. The performance began with the creation of the universe in several scenes, and told with various puppets. Many puppet genres in Southeast Asia begin with a similar sequence that demonstrates the creation of the world. In wayang kulit the dalang, or puppeteer, uses a large leaf-shaped puppet called the kayonan at the beginning of the performance in order to call the puppet world into being. In Myanmar the natkadaw, or female-spirit medium puppet welcomes the spirits of the ancestors and gives blessings to the stage and audience. In Cambodia the importance of balance in the universe is emphasized through a battle between the white monkey and the black monkey. These various scenes place “the story in cosmic time via the creation of the world. It links the genre to ancestor and spirit communication [. . .] the symbolic battle of animals implies that the story to be presented exists in a framework of external struggles which find their balance in artistic practice” (Foley 1990: 72). APEX Live combined the many different genres together into one creation scene. The dance of the kayonan puppet began the performance and was followed by the Cambodian battle of the white monkey and the black monkey. After these shadowy figures, the horse marionette pranced across the stage while puffy clouds

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appeared as shadows. More animals joined the scene, two small fish puppets that were manipulated by the Thai puppeteers and a large hand-held snake puppet from Laos PDR crossed the stage. Other animals, both as shadow and not, joined the fray, manipulated by a number of puppets. Finally humans, represented by various puppets, entered the stage. These puppets were smaller, some were marionettes from Myanmar and others were doll-style puppets from Cambodia. These doll puppets do not have rods or strings, but rather are held and maneuvered by one person or more. These doll puppets are not traditional to Cambodia. The artists were introduced to them when they did a joint workshop with the American puppet company Sandglass Theatre in 2006, but have since adapted the style into their own work. Through these scenes the artists were able to connect their various traditions to a mythic past rooted in tradition. The puppets that represented humans were very small, and the bodies of the puppeteers dominated the stage. After the creation scene, the story began with the entrance of a male and female, represented by the sbeik thom puppets for the characters of Rama and Sita. The male puppet was carried by Sor Sophal from Cambodia, who would later also play the main character in the story. The female puppet was carried by dancer Dewi Mayasari from Indonesia. The puppets met center and touched as the performers circled around. Between them emerged a small bunraku-style puppet carried by Erina Ogawa, the puppeteer from Japan. This puppet was about a foot-and-a-half tall and made out of white fabric. There were no decorations to suggest clothing or facial expression; the puppet was a blank slate searching for an identity. The plain, white, doll puppet found his identity in the next scene. Mayasari, now playing the mother, gives her puppet son a wayang kulit figure (Figure  8.2). It is through the traditional-looking wayang that the character was able to find an identity and “come alive.” Now, holding the puppet, the white doll was able to stand, walk, and interact with the world around him. The dramatic action used puppets, not only to bring the world into being, but also as the foundation of identity. The boy is shown having developed into a man through the shadows. The audience saw the shadowy outline of Sophal holding the same puppet as the white doll. The boy was not content to remain at home, however, and seeks excitement. He sees a friend win

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FIGURE 8.2   A scene from the APEX Live performance in Penang. Photo by the author. a great deal of money betting on who might win in a battle between two bulls. In order to participate in the scheme, the boy must earn money by working as a driver. The first time he is shown riding a bicycle with a passenger perched on the back. The puppeteers timed the shadows of bicycle, boy, and passenger to move together across the screen. The shadows gave the illusion of riding. As the boy took more and more passengers, he was able to upgrade his vehicle, and the final scene showed him driving a car. Greed is not rewarded; the boy gambles and loses. He does not want to pay, and gets in a fistfight with another man and is defeated. Hurt and broke, the poor boy collapses on the stage—he does not know what do to. The next sequence of scenes demonstrated how puppetry might be imagined as key to identity in Southeast Asian societies. The character of Hanoman, the monkey king, manipulated by the three puppeteers from Thailand, roused the boy and told him to go see a puppet show happening nearby. As the boy traveled, a small table-stage was brought on for a performance by local Penang-based puppeteer Ling Goh of the Kim Giak Low

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Choon Teochew Puppetry Troupe. Teochew puppetry is a unique form of rod puppets that perform scenes and characters influenced by Chinese opera. These small rod puppets developed as a threedimensional version of Chinese shadow puppetry. The Teochew are an ethnic minority in China who came to the country as refugees during the Song Dynasty (eighth to twelfth century). Many Teochew people migrated to Southeast Asia to escape economic hardship and persecution during the nineteenth century. The puppet genre has not only become an important part of Penang identity, but also a demonstration of the different global influences within Southeast Asia. During the lively performance, the boy remembers his mother and the puppets of his childhood (shown as a shadow image). He is scared, but travels back home, where he is welcomed by his family. The boy not only rediscovers the joy of puppetry but, in the play’s conclusion, travels from one puppeteer to another to observe and learn each style of puppetry. The performance ends in celebration with the different puppeteers and puppets together sharing the stage. The process, different styles of puppets, and content of the performance reflect some of the fundamental concerns and ideas of the ASEAN Community. Experiencing and embracing diversity are crucial in a region with so many differences among its people, both within and across national borders. “Citizenship based on cultural identity, in theory, defends the right of diversity and the right to participate in the process of governance” (Jones 2004: 148). At the end of the performance, the boy finds strength when he not only returns to his roots as represented by his mother and her puppet, but he also finds joy in learning and experiencing other puppet forms from other countries. Through the objects on the stage, he is able to interact with these different cultures and celebrate diversity. Even so, the boundaries between countries in ASEAN are not quite so permeable. Citizens are not able to freely travel in the region, and those in poorer countries have the most difficult time of all. The puppets used in the performance represent the diversity of traditions and impact of globalization. Similarities between different puppet figures or similar characters dramatized in different ways could be seen throughout the show. For example, the snake is a common symbol and both Laos PDR and Myanmar had snake puppets. Singapore had a wayang figure of Superman who mixed with the more traditional Javanese wayang figures. The participation of Japan was not only a financial necessity but

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also demonstrated how the region depends on outside voices and support. Erina Ogawa, a puppet artist from the company Utervision in Japan has participated in several APEX projects. In an interview she explained, “Until I got involved with this project I saw Southeast Asia as one culture and that’s quite a common viewpoint in Japan, but know I’ve seen what a diversity is there.” Like other cities in Southeast Asia, George Town has had to negotiate a colonial past to create a viable present and future. George Town, the main city on the island of Penang, off the coast of mainland Malaysia, has undergone major restoration and reclamation in order to capitalize on the city’s rich history in order to draw tourists. Malaysia has tried to get UNESCO Cultural Heritage designation for the city, but efforts so far have been unsuccessful. The building where APEX took place represents the city’s colonial past. It is a space that has been noted for emphasizing both global and local aspects of culture and heritage together; “The consumer is specifically invited to bear in mind both the global and the local, both East and West, both the particular and the universal at the same time” (Kahn 1997: 105). Joe Sidek, a local George Town Arts producer and advocate, coproduced the exchange. Sidek produces the yearly George Town Festival, which began in 2011, and brings international and local artists together for a month-long event. Sidek worked hard to use the event as a venue to foster Malaysian culture and identity. Sidek commented that Malaysia had a strong culture and dynamic artistic practices, but often was overshadowed by other Southeast Asian countries. “The people here do not associate the arts with a main part of their identity,” he explained. Sidek hoped to change that— most of the performances in the festival and throughout the year are outside and free. He gives away tickets to students in order to foster interest in the arts for the next generation. These values and goals were reflected in the young audiences he attracted to City Hall for APEX’s final performance. APEX Live reflected the concerns addressed throughout this book, demonstrating how the issues of identity operate at individual, national, and regional levels. The relationships between puppets, story, and aesthetics to place and ethnicity was demonstrated through the puppets in museums in Indonesia and marionettes of Myanmar. The relationship between tradition and modernity remains a main concern of most of these artists, which

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reflects that dichotomy in society. Place reinforces or challenges performative meanings in the streets of Siem Reap or in New York City. The virtual world of social media offers an alternative space to break global boundaries while reinforcing local values. In APEX Live, puppets were used as characters, as props, as puppets, and they interchanged and interacted with the humans and culture in dynamic ways. Social media was used to advertise, comment on, and even create the performance. In the beginning of his seminal work on culture and society, Stephen Fuchs complains, “This book is unfinished and incomplete, given that many more puzzles are posed than solved” (2001:  1). Somewhat like the very nature of research, identities in Southeast Asia are an ongoing work in progress. As individual nations, Southeast Asia is quite young and still struggling to develop systems of government and civil society. With its diverse cultures and societies, Southeast Asia offers one of the most historically rich places for a student of culture and art to study. In this book I offer reflections on how space and event come together. Identities in Southeast Asia are still becoming, but puppets in museums, city streets, and on stages offer insights into the different formations those identities inhabit.

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GLOSSARY

There are many foreign terms and unfamiliar genres of performances used throughout this book. This glossary serves as a reference to help the reader understand these terms. apsara (Cambodia): Heavenly nymph. Images of these mythic creatures appear all over, carved into the walls of the temples at Angkor. These images have inspired and inform some of the restoration of Cambodian dance. dalang (Malaysia and Indonesia): Master puppeteer. epok (Laos PDR): Rod and glove puppets. hun (Thailand): Translates as “body” or “sculpture” and refers to various forms of three-dimensional puppets. hun krabok (Thailand): Thai rod puppetry. hun lakhon lek (Thailand): Small dance-drama puppets. hun luang (Thailand): Old style of royal rod puppetry. khlong (Thailand): Canals. khon (Thailand): Masked dance. krom phleng pin peat (Cambodia): Traditional Khmer orchestra. lakhon lek (Thailand): A small rod puppet that is manipulated by three puppeteers. lakhon nai (Thailand): A court dance-drama, often performed by all women tied to the court. lakhon nok (Thailand): A folk form of Thai dance-drama for the common people. likay (Thailand): Spoken drama. mua roi nuoc (Vietnam): Water puppetry. nang (Thailand): Shadow puppetry. nang tulung (Thailand): Small shadow puppets. nang yai (Thailand): Large shadow puppets. Ramakien (Thailand): Thai version of the Ramayana. robam boran (Cambodia): Classical dance. sakdina (Thailand): A type of social hierarchy that infiltrates all aspects of Thai society. sbeik thom (Cambodia): Large shadow puppetry. wayang kulit (Indonesia and Malaysia): Shadow puppetry.

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Chapter 1 1 I recognize my use of “hope” may seem somewhat hyperbolic, but much of the rhetoric of ASEAN and even individual countries reflect a certain kind of ambitious, forward-thinking, globally engaged language. I would argue this is a key part of Southeast Asian identity and will reoccur in more specific ways throughout this book. 2 For an excellent overview of this conflict over heritage ownership in Indonesia and Malaysia, see Chong (2012).

Chapter 2 1 Much of my previous research and expertise is focused on Balinese wayang—I have gone through the training and ritual initiation to be a practicing dalang of this form. Different types of wayang are interrelated and this gives me a foundation for writing about these other forms. Even so, this experience also probably influences my interpretations and ideas about wayang as it relates to larger discussions of Indonesian culture and identity. 2 For more on theatre during the New Order period, see Bodden (2010) and Winet (2010). 3 P. M. Taylor (1995) provides an excellent overview of the history of the museum in Indonesia and the interrelationships with European collectors and institutions. My focus here is on identity in the present moment. 4 My analysis of the collections, and especially the puppets within the collections, depends on two sources. One is the excellent description and photographic evidence of the MNI by Sonja Mohr (2014). The second are my own visits to the MNI on various occasions from 2008 to 2015. The most detailed visit for this study was conducted in July 2014.

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5 An interesting side note to how tradition functions as a marker of identity in Indonesia is how adat or custom laws have also been manipulated throughout Indonesia’s history to articulate a kind of Indonesian-ness through culture and politics. For more on adat in Indonesia, see the volume edited by Jamie S. Davidson and David Henley (2007). Matthew Isaac Cohen also traces how tradition was formulated in the colonial period through the performing arts (2016). 6 In most types of wayang, the dalang is a master puppeteer. He (dalang are almost always male) manipulates and gives voice to the puppets, selects the story and improvises its execution, conducts the music and singers. He is revered as a holder of great ancient and contemporary knowledge—and sometimes has the same status as a priest. 7 “Namun dalam perkembangannya yang sedikit orang mengenal, yaitu adanya Wayang Revolusi.” 8 Indonesia declared independence on August 17, 1945, but it was not until 1949 that its independence was recognized by the Netherlands. 9 According to 2010 figures from the Pew Research Center, about 88 percent of Indonesia’s population identifies as Muslim. http:// www.pewforum.org/2010/11/04/muslim-population-of-indonesia/. 10 For a detailed history of the area, see Sastramidjaja (2014).

Chapter 3 1 The large puppetry form of sbeik thom has several possible variations of spelling—sbek thom and sbeak thom are also common. Throughout this paper I follow the spelling preferred by the SOC Festival, sbeik thom, unless I am quoting a source directly, in which case my spelling will follow the source. 2 The performers for sbeik thom have traditionally been male because, as puppet master Mann Kosal explained, “the puppets were sacred objects, and it was forbidden for women to touch them.” Today, there are several women studying and performing sbeik thom, but the puppeteers in the troupe from Wat Bo, the company I focus on in this article, are all still male. The only woman in the group is one of two narrators. 3 I have had some opportunity to study both Cambodian dance and sbeik thom through the Center for Khmer Studies and Sovanna Phum. I was struck by how similar many of the basic movements were. The puppet movement required a great deal of energy and concentration from the bottom of my feet that extended through

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the body. I call the puppeteers dancers because that is the only way to capture the type of movement and training required to perform sbeik thom. Indeed, many of the performers were also accomplished dancers. 4 While in Cambodia I was able to watch several sbeik thom performances by the group Sovanna Phum. Each of these performances also contained the battle between the white monkey and the black monkey, and in these versions the white monkey would also clearly win. 5 The Ramayana tells the tale of Rama and his brother Laksmana who, together with Hanoman, the monkey king, must rescue Rama’s wife Sita from the grasp of the evil ogre Ravana. At the end Rama is able to rescue Sita, but their reunion is not a happy one as she must undergo much criticism from people of the court and go through several trials by fire in order to prove her chastity. Many Cambodian arts tell small parts of this much larger tale, which is a cultural staple and has variations around South and Southeast Asia. 6 The Reamker uses different names and varied spellings for the main characters in the Ramayana. In my telling of the story and performance, I use the names that were given in the program for the festival. 7 C. Tuchman-Rosta (2014) traces the history of Cambodian dance and its many changes in her article. Many of the basic assumptions regarding dance can be extended to sbeik thom. 8 For a richer introduction to the many ways Cambodian arts are being used in both Cambodian and the diaspora as agents of memory and revision, see Leakthina and Winter (2006). 9 I have written elsewhere about the APEX—for example, see Goodlander (2018).

Chapter 4 1 Angkor, which is sometimes translated to mean “capital city” or “holy city” has become a catch-all term to indicate a large complex of many temples and city ruins. Angkor Wat is at the heart of a larger network, but visually and in name is used to represent the whole. The three towers of the temple have become monolithic and are seen on everything from the national flag to cans of beer. So Angkor is both an actual place and a larger idea. For an excellent source for this history, see Edwards (2007). 2 I am using the figures from the Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale University; other sources give numbers as high as seven million dead.

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3 Certainly after many of the dancers were killed or fled during the Khmer Rouge, it has been an ongoing process to both preserve and reinvent the past. Suppya Helene Nut (2014) gives one description of this process in a new production that toured internationally. 4 Sasha Constable remained involved in the Giant Puppet Project for only two years. 5 Google Maps hopefully marks the trip from Siem Reap to Battambang as taking just under three hours. But difficult roads and poor vehicles mean the trip usually takes from four to five hours of actual travel time. It is also possible to travel between the two cities by boat. 6 CKS is a nongovernmental organization supported in part by the United States government in order to facilitate academic exchange and scholarship. The center’s main office is in Siem Reap and has a library that is used by visiting scholars and locals. I studied Khmer language through a CKS program in Phnom Penh during the summer of 2014. 7 For more on power in a Southeast Asian context, see Errington (1990) or Anderson (1972). For a specifically Cambodian context, see Jacobson (2013). Each country of course has its own individual nuances in relation to power, but, overall, research shows that power in Southeast Asia is more indirect than Western conceptions of power, whether personal or political.

Chapter 5 1 More information about VYDA and the work they do is available at: https://vydalaos.weebly.com/. 2 The ten ASEAN countries are: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Timor Leste has petitioned for membership into the regional organization, but it has not yet been granted. 3 More information on the ASEAN anthem can be found at ASEAN. org. The words are sung in English. Used here by permission from ASEAN. 4 The current name of the Lao capitol, Vientiane, is not the historic name, but the French version that has been in use since the colonial period. For more on the history of the city, see Askew, Logan, and Long (2007). 5 Bandung Daily Photo (2014). 6 For a detailed description of Balinese wayang kulit and how it functions as tradition in Balinese society, see Goodlander (2016). 7 For more on these two famous dalang and the impact of their work on Indonesian culture, see Weintraub (2004).

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8 Sometimes called the Central Puppet Theatre in English. For more information, visit their website: http://www.nhahatmuaroivietnam. vn/en. 9 I observed puppeteers from other countries learning and performing with the water puppets at the ASEAN Puppet Exchange in 2016 and the ASEAN Puppet Festival in 2017. 10 I would like to express my gratitude to the entire staff of the National Puppet Theatre, and especially to Thanh Thuy and Thi Thu Thuy for their generosity and assistance.

Chapter 6 1 Hun refers specifically to doll, or three-dimensional forms of puppetry in Thailand. Hun is considered distinct from nang, or shadow puppets, which are two-dimensional and carved from leather. For more on the history of hun and the work of Chakrabhand Posayakrit to revive the traditional genres of hun, see Virulrak and Foley (2001). 2 Although, when I visited the Central Water Puppet Company, the national puppet theatre, the audiences for the daily performances were primarily foreigners brought by tour bus. Local audiences preferred the more innovative “dry puppetry” that Vietnamese artists developed through collaboration with Europe puppet companies. 3 For more on those connections, see Johnson (2007) who writes about tourism in Thailand. 4 The Harmony World Puppet Festival in Kanchanaburi was originally scheduled for November 2016—two weeks before the event, organizers announced it was canceled and would be rescheduled for February 2017.

Chapter 7 1 Antareja is a character that only appears in Javanese versions of the Mahabharata and he is a son of Bima. 2 For an in-depth analysis of how tradition is formulated and functions in society, see my book, Goodlander (2016). 3 Even today, few of the Balinese artists I am in contact with use social media. Those that do sometimes post photos or brief updates, but never to the same extent as artists around the region. I wonder if this points to the unique status of Balinese arts within religion—although the Balinese are probably the most international in their outreach

Notes

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9 10 11 12 13

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and training. The differences would be worth investigating at some point in the future. Although this project on ASEAN and puppetry is ongoing, I have begun to publish about these puppet exchanges in Asian Theatre Journal (2018) and a soon-to-be published collection on intercultural performance. In Cambodia, the Ramayana remains an important part of cultural heritage. The Cambodian version, the Reamker, appears in basreliefs on the walls of Angkor Wat, in dance-dramas, and other art forms. Catherine Diamond also observed the audience at Sovanna Phum was primarily “foreign visitor and residents,” with only occasional Cambodian neighbors who were allowed to attend the performances for free (2003: 174). Women do occasionally perform with Sovanna Phum as dancers. There are other groups that practice sbeik thom in Cambodia, for example, the monks at Wat Bo in Siem Reap sponsor a puppet company. Sovanna Phum, however, is the only group giving regular performances. Kosal also has maintained a distinctive commitment to pay his performers for their work. The name for Htwe Oo Myanmar is a combination of Khin Maung Htwe’s and his wife Tin Tin Oo’s last names. Both of their children are also active performers with the company. There are a number of common spellings for yokthe thay; I consistently use one in my chapter, but will include others in quotes. For more about the current status of traditional puppetry in Myanmar, see Foley (2001a) or Diamond (2012). It takes decades to really master this difficult art. Most puppeteers spend at least a year to learn any one character. Because of problems with resolution, I was only able to publish one screen shot of the photos from Htwe Oo’s Facebook page. Readers can view the different types of images on his page “Htwe Oo Myanmar.” Wayang Kelantan is also often called Wayang Siam, indicating the large role that Thai influence has played in its origins. Most of the scholars I site in this section use wayang Kelantan, so I will follow suit. I also wish to emphasize the placeness of this tradition, and the name aids in that desire. The other form, Wayang Jawa, draws more heavily from the Indonesian form and tells stories from the Mahabharata. That form, however, has declined rapidly and is rarely performed. There are artists and scholars who feel that Fusion Wayang is diluting the tradition with their addition of popular culture elements.

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Notes It is outside the scope of this chapter to detail the arguments for and against Wayang Fusion, but it is worth noting that groups like Pusaka and MySeni are also working to preserve Malaysian culture through different approaches.

Chapter 8 1 For an excellent introduction to the histories of various ethnic communities in Penang, see Su Nin (2007 [1993]). 2 Live music is used in many genres of puppetry in Southeast Asia. For some, like Indonesian wayang kulit or yokthe thay in Myanmar, it is difficult to extract the puppet performance from the music that accompanies it. One of the difficulties encountered in using music is that some styles of puppetry follow the music while in others the music follows the puppets. 3 After George Town, the artists came together a few months later in Hanoi, Vietnam, to work at the National Puppet Theatre to create the One ASEAN performance. Technical difficulties slowed the process and the artists were not able to create the desired, longer show. The group continues to seek funding for a longer rehearsal and development period to achieve this goal. 4 I was able to attend the rehearsals and performances for APEX Live in Malaysia from October 16, 2016 until October 23, 2016. I want to acknowledge a New Frontiers Experimentation Fellowship from Indiana University for providing financial support. I also want to thank the artists and organizers for generously sharing their process with me. My descriptions and notes are from that fieldwork.

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INDEX

Angkor Wat 45, 49, 53, 55–6, 60–1, 65–6, 69, 84 apsara 52–3, 63–4, 66, 148 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 8, 10, 34, 108, 179 anthem 93, 95 community 92, 173–4 puppet exchange (APEX) 57, 90, 144, 175, 180 audience 3, 10, 45–6, 48, 102, 121, 176 co-creators of meaning 41, 69– 70, 73, 81, 144, 167 composition 127, 125, 135 international 51, 53, 55–6, 103, 123, 155 local 66, 97, 112, 152, 156 participation 65, 92, 109, 125, 148 photographs of 159–61 tourist see tourism youth 128, 162, 180 Bandung, Indonesia 5, 28, 95–6, 103, 117, 120 Bangkok, Thailand 5, 7, 57, 121–4, 132, 138, 150, 175 Asiatique 1–3, 127 khlong 126–7 Lak Si District 128 bunraku 76, 79, 177

Cepot see clowns/clowning Chu Teu see mua roi nuoc Chuo, Tintoy 163, 168 clowns/clowning 27–8, 33, 85, 101, 109 Cepot 28 dance 9, 95, 100, 104, 107–8, 153–4, 177 Cambodian 44, 47–9, 51–6, 63, 65–6, 72, 75, 148 Thai 16, 115, 116–17, 119–20, 126–7, 129–30, 137–8 Doi Moi 106 epok 91 George Town, Malaysia 171–3, 180 Hanoi, Vietnam 90, 105–6, 109–10 Htwe, Khin Maung 152–3, 156, 158 hun 114–15, 115, 117–19, 126, 131, 136 identity 8–10, 28, 123 heritage 53–4, 56, 85, 111 Muslim 9, 164–5 modernity 173 and nostalgia 36, 40, 112 social media 146

206

206

Index

Jakarta 7, 16, 19–22, 40–1 Jataka Tales 151–2 kayonan 99–100, 176 Kelantan, Malaysia 163, 164–5 Khmer Rouge 44, 49–50, 54, 64 memorials 61–3, 65 Kosal, Mann 147–52 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 5, 165, 168, 174–5 Kraw Kay 63–4 Mahabharata 26–8, 33, 98 Monuman Nasional Indonesia (MONAS) 19–21, 24 mua roi nuoc 104–6, 110, 120 Chu Teu 108–9 structure of performance 107–8 music 80–2, 98, 104, 107–8, 127, 132–7, 143, 148, 153, 155, 175 gamelan 99, 101 nang 113–14, 135 New Order 17–18, 21, 103 Phare Circus 66–8, 78 Phnom Penh 60, 147, 149, 150–1 Pich, Sopheap 75 Ramayana 28, 47, 50–1, 98, 126, 163, 166 Ramakien 115 Reamker 148 Reed, Larry 101 ritual 18, 48, 50, 99, 119 sbeik thom 43–4, 47–8, 54, 147–8, 150, 177 sbeik touch 51, 54, 151

Sidia, I Made 95, 98–102 Siem Reap, Cambodia 49, 53, 54, 65–6, 83–5, 150, 181 Sukarno 17, 27, 37–8 tourism 65–6, 119, 123, 125, 155, 158–9 audiences 66, 108 photography 159–61 tradition 66, 73, 111, 131, 143, 167–8 and innovation 101, 138, 162 invented 54–6, 113 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 4, 35, 61, 64, 105, 165, 180 United Buddy Bears 171–2 “Unity in Diversity” 9, 16, 92, 172, 179–80 Vientiane, Laos PDR 94 Vietnamese water puppetry see mua roi nuoc Wat Bo 54–6 wayang 17–18, 28–9, 31, 97, 141–3, 166–7 wayang golek 26–7, 102 wayang kilitik 33–4 wayang kulit 29–31, 98–9, 142, 176 wayang kulit Kelantan 163–6, 167–8 Wayang Revolusi 34, 36–9 women puppeteers 151–2 Yangon, Myanmar 157–8, 162 yokthe thay 69, 152–6, 158, 161

208