Changing wayang scenes Heritage formation and wayang performance practice in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia 1 Front page: Spectators at Ki Enthus Susmono’s Wayang Santri, Tegal, 14th November 2010. By S.N. Boonstra. 2 VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT Changing wayang scenes Heritage formation and wayang performance practice in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.dr. F.A. van der Duyn Schouten, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie van de Faculteit der Letteren op donderdag 18 september 2014 om 15.45 uur in de aula van de universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105 door Sadiah Nynke Boonstra geboren te Bogor, Indonesië 3 promotor: prof.dr. S. Legêne copromotor: prof.dr. H.C.G. Schulte Nordholt 4 Table of Contents Map 7 Introduction 8 Wayang discourses 15 The wayang arena 23 Methodology 28 Fieldwork 31 Outline 35 Chapter 1 In search of wayang (ca. 1800-1945) 39 A Dutch context for wayang 41 Wayang unlocked (ca. 1800-1900) 43 The revaluation of a tradition (ca. 1900 - ca. 1920) 50 Preservation and codification (ca. 1920 - 1945) 56 Wayang on display 63 Conclusion 73 Chapter 2 Framing a national tradition (1945-1998) 75 A national context for wayang 77 Colonial paradigms reproduced 78 Wayang for the nation (1945-1967) 85 Centralization and education (1967-1998) 92 Conclusion 103 Chapter 3 Wayang as world heritage (1998 – the present) 107 An international context for wayang 109 Wayang post-1998 111 The Wayang Museum 113 The paradox of UNESCO heritage 121 Conclusion 132 Chapter 4 Purbo Asmoro: the performance of academic standards 135 Purbo Asmoro – Dalang Priyayi 138 5 Wayang at ISI Surakarta 143 Framed in tradition 150 Audience appreciation 157 Conclusion 160 Chapter 5 Manteb Soedharsono: how invention becomes convention 163 Manteb Soedharsono – Dalang Setan 166 Bigger wayang stars, smaller universe 171 Wayang innovations 175 The international face of wayang 179 Conclusion 187 Chapter 6 Enthus Susmono: in search of new audiences 191 Enthus Susmono – Dalang Edan 194 Marketing wayang 198 The performance of politics 204 Wayang Superstar 210 Conclusion 216 Conclusion 219 Bibliography 232 Samenvatting 244 Summary 253 Acknowledgements 261 6 s 7 surrounding and Java Map of Introduction Heritage is not so much about the past as it is about the present. Heritage is a way to make meaning of the past in the present. As such, heritage does not exist of itself, but ‘something’ is labeled heritage. Objects and customs with roots in the past are proclaimed heritage when they are valued enough in the present to be preserved for the future. These meanings and values of both tangible and intangible dimensions of culture from the past are not static, but change over time. As a consequence, what today is claimed as heritage is the result of a negotiation over such meanings and values (Smith 2006, 3). Heritage can thus be seen as a process in which the meaning and value of the past in the present is created and re-created, authorized and re-authorized. Making meaning of the past takes place among different communities over often contested and sensitive political, national, religious, and ethnic identity issues linked to local, national and world value systems for culture. The outcome of this dynamic process – what is heritage- is thus ultimately associated with the outcome of power relations – who decides heritage - and the production of identity – for whom is heritage - and plays a crucial role in processes of appropriation, belonging, exclusion, and inclusion – why is heritage - on local, national, and international levels – where is heritage? Those in power draw the longest straw and decide or authorize what is heritage and what is not. However, power relations are always contested and changed according to the socio-political and historical context. This thesis studies the relationship between colonial and postcolonial power structures, legacies of the colonial past en contemporary heritage formation, specifically with the concept of intangible cultural heritage. It takes the wayang performance practice in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia as a case study. Wayang made its debut in the international heritage arena when UNESCO proclaimed the wayang puppet theatre of Indonesia as one of twenty-eight Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 7 November 2003. UNESCO’s international heritage discourse became the newest wayang frame although wayang has since long been regulated and preserved through the intervention of academic, governmental and cultural institutions both in Indonesia and the Netherlands. Embedded in the NWO sponsored research program Sites, Bodies and Stories. The dynamics of heritage formation in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia and the Netherlands the first part of this thesis investigates the construction of wayang as 8 heritage through an analysis of wayang discourse and its dynamics in contemporary Indonesia and the Netherlands in the context of the colonial and postcolonial past since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and into the postcolonial period in the twentieth and twenty-first century. The second part follows three of the current most famous puppeteers, dalang, in Indonesia to explore how and to what extent the historically constructed and authorized wayang discourse affects contemporary wayang performance practice. Various protagonists battle in the wayang heritage arena: academics, cultural institutions, such as museums and wayang organizations, policy makers, politicians, dalang, their managers and audiences. This thesis aims to investigate the relation between heritage discourse and practice. I intend to address the questions of the extent to which wayang discourses from colonial times, through postcolonial to contemporary times influence current wayang performance practices to see how and to what degree dalang are impacted by discourses of wayang. This thesis seeks to find answers to sub-questions as to how authorized discourses of wayang have been shaped over time and how wayang was defined and made into heritage. Who the agents are and what the driving forces are behind the discourse will also be explored. To go beyond the authorized heritage discourse I will look at current wayang performance practices of three famous dalang to examine how dalang support, contest, resist and recast authorized wayang discourses, and to what ends. Attention for the practitioners of heritage came with the development of the concept of intangible cultural heritage as the result of an important anthropological shift in the concept of heritage. For decades attempts were made to define what was previously, and sometimes still is, called folklore. The concept of intangible cultural heritage is a reaction to criticism on the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention) of 1972. The World Heritage Convention defines heritage as physical tangible, monumental, grand, universally significant, imposing and based on something ‘authentic’ (Smith 2006, 27). The World Heritage List that accompanies the World Heritage Convention enumerates the most important monuments, buildings, and sites of humanity that are part of the cultural and natural heritage that the World Heritage Committee considers to contain so-called outstanding universal value. At first the UNESCO heritage list was meant to give examples of different kinds of heritage that should be protected, but it developed into a list on which every self-respecting nation-state 9 wanted to have ‘its’ heritage enlisted in order to gain status as heritage protector and to open up possibilities for tourism and funding. The World Heritage Convention grew out of a nineteenth and twentieth century discourse about protection and conservation management of material remains from the past. It focused on West-European architecture and archaeology, including anthropology, and developed especially in Britain, France and Germany. This discourse evolved alongside the institutionalization of museums as repositories and manifestations of national identity and cultural achievement. When architecture and archeology were able to claim professional expertise over material culture the concepts of conservation and protection were institutionalized. It was the professional expert who was responsible for the care of tangible remains from the past and for passing on aesthetic values and conservation ethics. The aim was to disseminate these values to the public at large, and to ensure greater conservation awareness and appreciation of a nation’s cultural heritage (Smith 2006, 18- 19). In the twentieth century, the institutionalization of the heritage concept continued with the development in the West of all kinds of charters, conventions, and agreements concerning the preservation and management of cultural heritage on both national and international levels. In these charters and conventions, conservation ethics were standardized, based on the conviction that the cultural significance of a site, building, artifact or place must determine its use and management. It was still the expert who identified the innate value and significance, which are often defined in terms of historical, scientific, educational, or more generally ‘cultural’ significance (Smith 2006, 26). Since World War II, UNESCO, as one of the United Nation’s agencies striving to overcome international conflict, has developed