shadow play

As its name suggests, shadow puppets are made from the skins of animals (buffalo, cow or goat). Shadow puppets are used to demonstrate Purwa The play chronicles the story of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, is therefore also called puppet Purwa. Until now leather puppet show as well as a means of entertainment is also one part of traditional ceremonies such as: clean village, ngruwat and others. To perform a puppet show complete skin required approximately as many as 18 people supporters. One person as a puppeteer, 2 people as waranggana, and 15 people as gamelan wiraswara concurrently.
The average performances in one night is 7 to 8 hours, from 21:00 hours until 05:00 hours of the morning. When done in the daytime show usually starts from 09.00 until 16:00 hours. Place puppet show performances arranged by using an abstract concept. Arena stage consists of a screen of white cloth as a means of technical and placed beneath banana stem to stick puppets. In the leather puppet show, the number of scenes in a play can not be determined.
The number of these scenes will vary based on the play that demonstrated, or depending on the mastermind. As the pre-spectacle is tetabuhan that has nothing to do with the main story, so just be as heated atmosphere or introductory course to get into the actual show. As a guide in presenting puppet shows are usually a puppeteer would use a standard form of puppetry puppetry books. But there is also the mastermind who uses records from the old puppeteers whose knowledge acquired through descent.
However, a puppeteer also given the opportunity to improvise, because the grip of puppetry is actually only contains the main story's core course. To further turn the atmosphere and make the performance more interesting, improvisation and creativity puppeteer holds a very important role. Color makeup in leather puppet has a symbolic meaning, but there is no general rule here. The color red makeup for the face for example, most indicate the nature of anger, but the figure has Setyaki makeup color red is not a figure insolence. So the puppet character is not determined by the color of makeup, but also determined by other elements, such as the shape (pattern) puppet itself. Arjuna figures, both for having a black face and yellow colors, is still Arjuna with its properties that we already know. Advances such as color differences are only to differentiate spatial and temporal appearance. Arjuna with the color yellow face for a scene staged in the palace, while Arjuna with the color black face indicates that he was on his way. Similarly, figures Gatotkaca, Krishna, Werkudara and others. This puppet face color difference will not be known by the audience who saw the show from behind the scenes. Lighting equipment used in the leather puppet show from the first until now has undergone many changes in accordance with technological developments. In its original form of lighting equipment used in the leather puppet show is blencong, then evolved into a kerosene lamp (keceran), pumped, now many use electric lights.