[Kabar-indonesia] American gives birth to new style of Balinese shadow puppetry

[Joyo at aol.com]

The San Francisco Chronicle 
Thursday, June 29, 2006      

PLAYING WITH FORM

Shadow World Film Festival

A man's quest to Bali gives birth to a new style of
shadow puppetry

By Reyhan Harmanci

Larry Reed, a Yale man who speaks five languages and
is one of the only Americans who can claim to have
mastered wayang kulit, Balinese shadow puppetry, has
invented a new style of shadow puppetry, one that
infuses the traditional form with elements of Western
theater and cinema traditions; it differentiates
itself from Balinese tradition with giant screens,
multiple sets and human actors amid the puppets. He
doesn't have a name for this form -- "projected shadow
play" or "modern shadow play" are as close as he gets.
Its genesis, he says, is simple. 

 "It came through me being interested in both theater
and film. It combines aspects of both, with live
music, too. It's the original screenplay," he says,
laughing. "I mean, in fact, it takes place on a
screen."

 To celebrate the DVD release of projects made over
the years by Reed's company, ShadowLight Productions,
he is hosting a Shadow World Film Festival.

For four consecutive Friday nights, starting this
week, ShadowLight films will be screened with special
musical guests and related food. Reed got into shadow
puppetry when he went to Bali in 1970 after a stint in
the Peace Corps in Costa 
Rica, where he worked as a theater director after
graduating from film school at the San Francisco Art
Institute.

 "I went to Indonesia in search of, well, for exactly
what I found: theater  that wasn't like a Broadway
play but used music and humor to tell stories. What  I
found in Bali was mask theater and shadow play. It had
a light touch with serious subjects that appealed to
me," Reed says.

 "It's almost the opposite of our tradition. We know
what Shakespeare said, but we don't know how he said
it. In Asia, the theater is improvised. What's passed
on is how to do it."

 Over the years, Reed went back and forth from San
Francisco to Indonesia,  studying with the family of a
teacher he had at the now-defunct Center for World
Music. He is considered a master of the shadow play
form, but he shies away from teaching it, instead
directing people to go to Bali to learn.

 Over time, though, he began developing his new form,
both as film and as live theater. He began working
with that form in the late '80s, and he incorporated
ShadowLight in 1993. Since then he's produced works
that meld the Balinese traditions with other kinds of
ethnic storytelling, including "The Wild Party,"  a
Jazz Age poem; a Karuk Indian story called "Coyote's
Journey" and, in a piece  called "7 Visions," Mexican
folklore.

 "It's exciting to me how we use simple means to
create sophisticated effects, and that serves as a
bridge to other cultures," Reed says. "More than
anything,  I've tried to make each of these things
exciting on their own, make them good stories,
something you'd want to see more than once, even." .

 Festival starts at 8 p.m. Fri. with a program of
"Shadow Master/Highlights 1994-2006." Delancey Street
Screening Room, 600 Embarcadero, S.F. (415) 648-4461.
www.shadowlight.org.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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