PROSPECT OF INDONESIAN WAYANG

Virtually all traditional arts including wayang in Indonesia are always feared of getting weak and undergoing extinction due to the inability to survive in the midst of the emerging new cultural arts and the penetration of foreign cultures. This fear is quite reasonable, because this new emerging cultural arts are gaining younger generation’s attention and interest. In the long run, the fading young generation’s interest in the art of wayang will also has a bad impact on the development of the wayang. Therefore all efforts to introduce and socialize the wayang art are essentially imperative. Enhanced appreciation and socialization of the wayang art can be carried out by various ways, for instance, through formal education in schools, wayang tv shows, books writing, et cetera. Anticipating such an existence threat as stated above, it is necessary to do as advised as follows:

CONSOLIDATION OF WAYANG DEVELOPMENT

Nowadays the wayang culture art is still strong and showing its existence in the community. Wayang performance is still enjoyed by many including the young generation. Wayang artists such as dalang, swarawati or sindhen (female singer) and pengrawit (instrument players) as supporters and main performers of wayang performance keep on growing and being able to live prosperously by their professions.

In this era of globalization, the existence of a cultural art is determined by its competitiveness. Without competitive edge sooner or later it will face difficulty and dead. The strength of competitiveness lies in its quality. That is why every wayang culture art has to appear with prime quality. The quality of wayang art is built based on the edipeni and adiluhung nature of wayang. Wayang has to perform as an interesting show while at the same time able to convey guidance in the form of valuable moral messages that are beneficial for the people. The uniqueness of its guidance is the advantage of wayang’s competitiveness, and not only as entertainment show. The balance between entertainment and guidance in the show can ensure the survival of wayang. To keep on having a cultural endurance, the wayang community should continuously and consistently do consolidation. The consolidation may encompass insight, human resources and organizational consolidation.

INSIGHT CONSOLIDATION

The wayang art must have a far sight vision to the future that is full of challenges. Therefore apart of increasing the quality of wayang art, the wayang community must also have the right insight. The wayang has to be able to take part in creating an advanced human civilization. It is the right time that wayang art enters the science field. Based on contemplations and researches actually the wayang art has a lot of scientific ideas. Nowadays the scientific content in wayang has been reviewed to be used for the welfare of the society. It is hoped that the knowledge gained from wayang can help driving the rise of Indonesian people’s scientifical ethos in mastering science and technology for the endeavor of creating an advanced civilization. Science and Technology are the main mean in creating a civilization. It has been well proven time to time in the history of mankind civilization. Mankind civilization has continued developing through ages since the 7thcentury to this modern age. The driving force of civilization development is mostly the philosophers, scholars or scientists and humanist. The development of civilization can be seen and traced through the history of mankind’s culture in this world.

SCIENTIFIC CONTENT IN WAYANG

From the development of civilization mentioned above, it is clear that the driving force and means of creating an advanced civilization is nothing else but the mastery of science and technology. Therefore an advanced civilization development thesis can be formulated: ”Mastering in philosophy is to master science and technology. With a character based science and technology as foundation, an advanced and prosperous civilization can be developed”. Within the scope of this thesis, the formulation of “Wayang’s Tree of Knowledge” started with Wayang Philosophy as its core.

PUPPETRY KNOWLEDGE

Certainly the wayang knowledge will always exist and be developed. This type of knowledge has developed into two lines, Traditional Puppetry and Academic Puppetry. Traditional Puppetry Knowledge owned by the

dalangs. Due to the wayang art classified as oral tradition, there is no written document regarding this traditional puppetry. On the other hand, the second line is the academic puppetry knowledge which is compiled as science and being taught in school until university level. This puppetry knowledge has been compiled in an established rule (paugeran) in the form of wewaton and pakem in order to give guidance to

achieve a pagelaran or pakeliran with edipeni and adiluhung quality so that it becomes a “masterpiece”. A qualified wayang performance is the aim of puppetry knowledge. This puppetry art science has developed dynamically following the world’s development.