Students of English department were amazed and astonished with the Wayang Orang performance of our friends and colleagues from Trisakti University on May 21st, 2015. For many of us, it was our first experience of watching a live Wayang Orang performance. And like many first experiences, we were astounded and found ourselves cheering victoriously when the mighty Hanoman defeated the cruel and gruesome Rahwana.

Our keen audience
Our keen audience

The performance happened thanks to collaboration that was initiated by our Senior lecturer, Wiwik Andreani and Dr. Sri Yatini . Risa, R. Simanjuntak in her welcoming speech stated the significance of balancing “the use of right and left parts of the brain” and that the performance, as one example, will help us achieve the balance state.

Hanoman, Sinta and the dancers
Hanoman, Sinta and the dancers

Dr. Sri Yatini, the director and the lecturer for the Wayang Orang course, signified the needs for Indonesian youths to know and then love Indonesia’s traditional form of arts. She believes that Wayang Orang as performing art will teach the hormone – driven youth with compassion and unlike the current TV shows, it will give them strong sense of nationalism.

Grieving Sinta
Grieving Sinta

The 6th semester students, who were assigned to attend the performance, felt that they have learned a great deal of performing art know-hows. Having analyzed the work of Shakespeare and other Western playwrights, and learned to produce them on stage, our students were encountered with the typically unique Indonesian form of performing art. We hope that the distinctive features of both the West and the East will broaden students’ horizons on performing arts.

We thanks our friends from Trisakti for the visit. [irf]