Over a year ago, my classmates and I watched a Wayang\nKulit performance as part of our Traditional Asian Theatre course, alongside a\nseven-day crash course on Mak Yong. Despite being half-Kelantanese (as my\nfather reminds me from time to time), I found myself unable to comprehend most\nof the text, due to the thick dialect. I was not alone, however; my classmates\nwere just as lost as I was. One of them had the excuse of being foreign, at\nleast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We turned to actor \/ writer Fahmi Fadzil, who had accompanied us on this study tour. He tried to watch, listen, enjoy and<\/em> translate the story for us, all at the same time. I recalled watching his face as he explained the performance, with a sort of energetic enthusiasm. The following is a result of a recent email interview I conducted with Fahmi (who recently won the BOH Cameronian Arts Award for Most Promising Artist) about his next production, “Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari”, a docu-performance of various inspirations. In his thoughts on Wayang Kulit, naughtiness and youth, I think it’s clear that his enthusiasm has survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nApprentice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tell us\nabout yourself. How did a chemical engineering student become a Wayang Kulit\nenthusiast? Who did you train under, and for how long? What was the experience\nlike?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Entah lah, I wonder about it all the time. I think\nit’s probably my “angin” — but, more coherently, in the last three\nor so years that I’ve been in love with Wayang. I suppose I was absolutely just\nfascinated by the symbols, systems and structures — as only a structuralist\nengineer can be fascinated — that Wayang engaged in, as well as the\nperformance and roles of the dalang in all of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m not trained as a dalang, yet — but I’m not so\nsure if we can really see this process sama macam nak pergi universiti, take\nhowever many credit hours, and then you graduate. Lain sikit, actually. What\nlittle I’ve learnt has taken place in all sorts of environments: in classes and\nin coffee shop conversations. And from talking to people and reading\nbiographies (for “Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari”, specifically). I guess\nit’s just one of those things where you’re continuously learning, uncovering,\nand having new things revealed to you at all times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tell us a\nmore about Wayang Kulit. What do you think are its strengths and weaknesses?\nThe form, as I’ve been taught, was influenced by Hindu culture and is practised\nmostly in Kelantan and Terengganu. Where is Wayang’s place in current Malaysian\nsociety?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Wah, susah nak jawab ni! But I think the thing we\nforget a lot about — and hence should talk more about — is the regional\nexperience of Wayang. Wayang does not exist in a vacuum, and the fact that the\ncerita pokok of Wayang Kulit Siam is a localised adaptation — or\nsyncretisation; big word, I know — of the Ramayana from India, says it has\nthis relationship with the other Wayang forms in the region. We forget this bit\na lot because of our more recent (within the last century, I mean) political milieu\n— the creation of national and political boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love Wayang most for its spontaneity and its earthy humour. But its resolved metaphysics is also worth examining, in our zaman porak-peranda ni. Its ability to situate itself firmly within a larger spiritual discourse (articulated, though it was, by Islamic terms) is a reminder that another kind of Malay \/ Muslim is possible, and this enunciation is more and more necessary in this day and age, I feel — what with the chauvinistic ethnic pride and other keris-waving nonsense we see today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, we’ve gone and dumped Wayang (and Mak Yong,\nManorah, Dabus, etc) in the bakul sampah, for a whole slew of reasons. It is\nrather heartbreaking, but it doesn’t have to be this way. That’s why we’re\ndoing what we’re doing, my friends and I, because talk alone saves nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Main-main<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nDecember 2006 you put on a “Malam Pembuka” — with musicians Azmyl\nYunor and Aziz Ali — for Projek Wayang, an endeavour that would eventually\nlead to “Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari”. Are you carrying over any of the\nconcepts explored in “Malam Pembuka”? Can we expect “Wayang\nKadbod” and “Wayang Tangan”?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The one thing we learnt from “Malam Pembuka”\nwas that an attempt to learn and engage with Wayang involved, to a large\ndegree, a process of fun-learning — our assumptions, biases, etc — and to\nfind another “way of seeing”. This was important for us because for that\none-year (“Malam Pembuka” was a milestone of a longer, ongoing\nprocess, Projek Wayang), we struggled with what Wayang meant for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Questions about form and function arose, as well as of contexts. What does it mean to perform Wayang Kulit in Kuala Lumpur? Are we resolved to only having wayang gambar as our Wayang (seeing, as it is, that only a certain kind of wayang gambar –\u00ad structurally Ameri-centric, I would suppose — is favoured by Malaysian audiences)? What about the other Wayang possibilities and permutations that exist? What kinds of stories and performance experiences can these possibilities and permutations unveil \/ reveal for KL?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a sense, “Malam Pembuka” proved to us\nthat it was worthwhile creating a methodology with which we could not only work\nwith Wayang in KL — but also bring along more friends to work with Wayang. To\nthis point in time, we have had a dozen or more people working on the project:\nbeing exposed to some aspects of Wayang Kulit, and taking a certain amount of\nownership of this work. Which is a wonderful success, in a way. And this\n“way of seeing” partly informs the way we work in “Dua, Tiga\nDalang Berlari”, where we cross paths and merge with the docu\u00adtheatre\nframework of Mark Teh’s recent projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But no, there’ll be no Wayang Kadbod or Wayang Tangan\nin this production. But there’ll be lots of naughtiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Playing\nWith Other Kids<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You are\nworking with actor Lim Chung Wei, visual artist Wong Tay Sy, director Mark Teh,\nexperimental musician Aziz Ali and graphic artist Fahmi Reza in “Dua, Tiga\nDalang Berlari”. What is it like, with so much varied input? Have there\nbeen instances where the “many cooks + broth” maxim apply? Tell us\nabout the process.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our relationships with each other go back four or five\n(and for some, even more) years. For this project, the chemistry has been so\nrich — which has definitely helped the process, because we have come to know\nwhat we can each contribute to the creation of this performance. We know when\nto take a step back, when to lunge ahead, when to say: “Dah, cukup lah\ntu.” So, I don’t think that maxim applies so much. In fact, I think it’s a\nmatter of “bergotong-royong satu kampung to kacau dodol”!<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did\nthe concept of “Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari” come to be? How would you\ndescribe the performance? We know that it was originally called “Operasi\nDalang”. What happened? It’s like “Mission Impossible” became\n“The Running Man” …<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari” started out\npretty much as an idea to engage and deal with Wayang and contemporary\nMalaysian society; how something so old yet so tremendously popular lost its\nappeal; and what it means to aggrandise someone over another (oh, award\nceremonies!). But, more than anything else, we just wanted to work with each\nother!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We felt that “Operasi Dalang”, as a name,\ndidn’t fully reflect what we had explored and found, up until that point —\nsince it does connote a certain orchestrated political tragedy, what with\nsimilarities to “Operasi Lalang”. We wanted it to reflect a cheekier\nsense of things. I suppose if you wanted to put a label on this performance, it\nwould be Wayang Nakal — hence that “kanak-kanak” allusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pak Dollah\nand Pak Hamzah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We\nunderstand that part of “Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari” will explore on\nthe rivalries between Dalang Dollah Baju Merah and Dalang Hamzah Awang Mat. Can\nyou elaborate more on this? How does this figure into the devising of the\nperformance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Actually, we’re beginning to rethink the term\n“rivalry” in this instance; maybe they were just two sides of the\nsame coin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arwah Pak Hamzah bin Awang Amat and arwah Pak Abdullah\nbin Ibrahim (or Pak Dollah Baju Merah) began their formal careers in Wayang at\nabout the same time. Because of Pak Dollah’s father’s unwillingness to part\nwith his only son, the equally formidable Pak Hamzah was subsequently selected\nto tour various countries — and, later in life, was eventually elevated as a\nSeniman Negara; he helped to formalise certain aspects of Wayang Kulit, to the\npoint that it can now be taught in institutions like ASWARA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast to this, Pak Dollah remained in Kelantan almost\nhis entire life — but enjoyed an immense and singular popularity at home. It\nwas these contrasts, choices and missed opportunities that we wanted to\nexplore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s happened over the rehearsal period — oh dear, has it been 5 months already? –\u00ad has been an acclimatisation with what wayang kulit is, who these two dalangs were, and what they meant to contemporary wayang practice — things like that. We sift through research materials and select pieces before throwing everything on the floor and see what works (not just structurally, but also according to what our guts say).<\/p>\n\n\n\n You know, standard devised theatre process, with room\nleft for spontaneity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nMonster and the Dalang<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Dua,\nTiga Dalang Berlari” is partly based on the “Betara Kala”, a\nstory about a monster chasing a man who seeks refuge in a Wayang Kulit\nperformance. As it sits down to watch it, the monster responds to, and has a\nconversation with, the dalang. Tell us more about it. Why did you choose this\nparticular Wayang Kulit tale to inform the work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Banyak jugak soalan-soalan ni!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tale of “Betara Kala”, from what we have\nlearnt, connects Wayang Kulit Siam to its southern cousin-of-sorts, Wayang\nPurwa, in some ways (though, for Wayang Kulit Siam, it only appears in the\nsembah guru ritual performance). More interestingly, this story references\nitself in a — watch out, now — meta-textual manner, where the dalang in the\nstory names the various symbols in Wayang to an immensely inquisitive\n“Betara Kala”, and thus gives meanings to the Wayang form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From a textual level, we were keen to explore\nauthorship (and aggrandisement of the author) — and, hence, the lack of an\nauthor (as the story is an oral narrative).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Questions about how this tale came to come to Kelantan\nperked us up. We were also interested in structured improvisation (recalling\nthe ”tikam-tikam” works of Leow Puay Tin), and felt that this story could\nprovide some sense of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s all a bit gila.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bringing\nWayang To People<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Like last\nyear’s “Baling (membaling)”, “Dua, Tiga Dalang Berlari” is\nrunning a gauntlet of colleges and the Central Market Annexe. Why take theatre\nto students? What do you hope to achieve? How do you think they’d take to\nWayang?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Theatre can be very mahal. That is one of the factors\ncontributing to why orang tak nak tengok. Why spend RM40 to RM100, when you can\ncatch movies about spiders or pirates for RM10? Plus you’re allowed popcorn and\ndrinks!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our performances in these institutions will be free,\nor almost free. We’re hoping to bring in a new set of audiences into theatre by\nbringing theatre to these audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This whole exercise is nothing new to Malaysia, of\ncourse. But hopefully we’ll also get to show another kind of theatre (there’s\nnot just one kind, kan?) — and, at the very least, present a story about\nWayang Kulit and the dalangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Otherwise … mana kita nak dengar, tak?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why not\nbring the performance to high schools? Do you intend to bring “Dua, Tiga\nDalang Berlari” (or Projek Wayang, in general) to audiences outside the\nKlang Valley?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Why not? <\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: <\/em><\/strong> 23.05.2007<\/em><\/strong> on Kakiseni<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over a year ago, my classmates and I watched a Wayang Kulit performance as part of our Traditional Asian Theatre course, alongside a seven-day crash course on Mak Yong. Despite being half-Kelantanese (as my father reminds me from time to time), I found myself unable to comprehend most of the text, due to the thick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3544,3558,3535],"tags":[3326,902,1087,867,3325,1345,228,1000,920,46,2760,3599],"language":[7523],"writer":[7742],"class_list":["post-25206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-culture","category-interview","category-theatre","tag-aziz-ali","tag-azmyl-yunor","tag-dollah-baju-merah","tag-fahmi-fadzil","tag-fahmi-reza","tag-hamzah-awang-mat","tag-interview","tag-lim-chung-wei","tag-mark-teh","tag-theatre","tag-wayang-kulit","tag-wong-tay-sy","language-english","writer-tengku-amalia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25206"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38729,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25206\/revisions\/38729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25206"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=25206"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=25206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}