Shadow Play Art

PUPPET one of the nation's top arts and culture of Indonesia's most prominent among the many works of other cultures. Culture puppets include acting, singing, music, speech arts, literary arts, painting, sculpture, and art is also symbolic. Culture of puppets, which continues to grow over time, also a lighting media, propaganda, education, entertainment, philosophical understanding, and entertainment.
According to the research of historians of culture, culture is a culture of wayang native to Indonesia, particularly in Java. The existence of puppets was many centuries before the Hindus go to the island of Java. Although a popular puppet story in today's society is an adaptation of the works of Indian literature, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Both the main story in the puppet undergone many changes and additions to adapt them to the original philosophy of Indonesia.

Adjustment of the concept of this philosophy is also about the philosophical position of the Javanese people against the gods in the puppet. The gods in the puppet is no longer something that is free from wrong, but like any other God's creatures, sometimes acting wrong, and could be a blunder. The presence of puppet characters dalam_ panakawan deliberately created the culture of Indonesia (Javanese cultural exact) to reinforce the concept of philosophy that in this world there is no creature that is really good, and that is really bad. Each creature is always bearing the elements of good and evil.

In his dissertation titled Bijdrage tot de Kennis van het Javaansche Tooneel (1897), the Dutch cultural historian Dr. GA.J. Hazeau indicated his belief that the puppet is the original performance of Java. Understanding puppet in the dissertation Dr. Hazeau it is walulang inukir (a carved leather) and seen his shadow on the screen. Thus, the puppet in question certainly is a shadow play as we know it today.