Complete Awesomeness

Last night, and well technically this morning, was completely awesome. After a hard day of studying bahasa Indonesia and, for me at least, translating my final essay we set off for adventure. At 6pm we (Emma, Julia, and I) set off from the LTC in our handy travel (really a nice way to get from town to town, renting your own car and driver) to Solo. We were off to see another wayang kulit. This one by dalang Pak Enthus, who is a Sufi dalang and apparently very controversial.

The Dalang

He makes kasar jokes (I can’t think of an appropriate way to translate kasar right now) and is very outspoken. Last night he made many political jokes about both political parties and officials. I couldn’t understand all of it, I don’t yet speak Javanese, but I could catch some of the jokes and he was very funny. The crowd LOVED him. More on that later. Let’s start at the beginning.
We got in the travel and made our way to Solo. I again was scared for my life almost every minute I was in the car. The swerving and passing and craziness is just a bit much for me. I also got a bit motion sick because of all the swerves and bumps. Luckily Emma is a boss and keeps ‘Fishermans Friends’ in her bag. They are licorice flavored hard candies that help with motion sickness. They’re also good for your throat, so win/win. Once we got to Solo we realized there was way more going on than just a wayang performance. It turns out there was a celebration for the 78th birthday of NU and Ansor. Nahdatul Ulama or NU is a traditionalist Sunni group in Indonesia and Ansor is the military wing of NU. There were maybe 1000 people there. There were huge screens set up broadcasting this famous kyai (to simplify: Muslim leader) singing and music was playing… it was a hoot! Apparently they perform sholawat weekly but this was a special and very large performance. It was like a rock concert. This rockin’ sholawat was also broadcast on Indonesian TV and of course the large group of bule was not ignored. So Emma, Julia, Emma’s friend, and I were on Indonesian TV last night too. That was interesting. It was fascinating to see how similar this was to Lutheran youth gatherings I went to as a kid. The only difference was well… this was Islamic and it was outside. Everything else seemed so similar. 

Maybe 1/3 of the people

At about 10:30 the wayang finally started. It was beautiful. There were so many modern and fascinating puppets to look at. Which is good since because I don’t speak Javanese I was only picking up words or small phrases. It was also amazing how many people were crowded around to watch this dalang perform. Similar to the sholawat they were broadcasting the wayang to the crowds. After the sholawat the crowd died down a bit since that was the main attraction but there were still mass amounts of people watching this dalang either on the stages set around the grounds (you can see some in the photo above) or sitting on the ground watching the screens. We, through Emma’s connections with her former mentor, were put RIGHT up on the stage. We were sitting almost on the pesinden (singers in wayang). It was nice to be so close. It really felt like we were a part of the wayang.

Pesinden

They also treated us as such. They gave us free dinner (meant for the performers) and water. We tried to say no, but Javanese hospitality said “feed the guests.” It was very neat to be in the environment.  To feel the gamelan, hear everything clearly, feel the buzz, excitement and laugher of the performers, and to see clearly! I also got some pretty great photos out of the deal. Even if I ended up smelling of smoke it was awesome. We eventually went home around 1pm and got home at about 2:15pm. I felt really bad for getting home so late but at the same time it was kind of worth it because the whole experience was so amazing. We got a two for one deal with the sholawat and the wayang. I’m so glad Emma set it up and we got to go. It was complete awesomeness.

And now for some photos, check facebook for more:

The set up. We were real close.

Me and the gamelan (wayang orchestra)

Me and Emma

Me and Julia

Beautiful modern kayon

Puppet up in flames

What happens to you when you catch fire

Just chatting