(ii) Meeting Mbah Ledjar and Nanang at their Studio!
Date: 19th Dec 2010
Venue: Jalan Mataram Dn 1/ 370
Mbah Ledjar at his studio
When we found Mbah Ledjar, he was working on a new gunungan, the leaf-shaped puppet that marks the beginning and end of the Wayang, which literally translates into “little mountain” (“Gunung” is Indonesian for mountain, e.g. Gunung Merapi). Traditionally, the Wayang Kulit gunungan has a structure that marks the entrance to a Javanese house painted in the centre. In his gunungan, however, he was experimenting with replacing it with a Dutch veranda.
He invited us to sit and have some tea, and began taking out the files of newspaper articles and academic journals he had compiled over the years that traced the development of the Wayang Kancil in Java and abroad. He kept track of its migration of the Wayang Kancil to England (Sarah Bilby), America (Tamara Fielding), Australia (Irene Ritchie), Germany, and even to a museum in Holland.
Tamara Fielding brings Wayang to New York
Credits to: The Indo Project (http://theindoproject.org/blog/indo-profile-tamara-fielding)
Irene Ritchie, Australia - Translator of Kancil Stories
Credits to: Irene Ritchie’s Website (http://www.kancilforest.info/Irene%20Ritchie.jpg)
Mbah Ledjar shared how he is never recognized for his work as a Wayang Kancil maker. The exhibits of his work featured in the museum in Jakarta always cite the maker of these puppets to be Bo Liem, a Chinese man who is recorded in textbooks as the first maker of the Wayang Kancil, despite his stamp clearly imprinted on the puppets displayed. He argues that the Wayang Kancil did not begin with Bo Liem, but instead is his own invention. In recounting this to me he was animated with deep conviction; but he also appeared very weary, as if he had told this story to whoever would listen. But little has been done. His contributions, and the Wayang Kancil, still go largely unheard of in his community in spite of international recognition. (For more on this, you can read this article on “Ki Ledjar Soebroto: Puppet master left in the shadows”, written by the Jakarta post in March 2009).
His grandson, Nanang, came over too. Nanang has been performing the Wayang Kancil ever since he was two years old, and has designed programs to create digital forms of Wayang (such as the Wayang animation I posted in this entry which you can watch here). Mbah Ledjar has high hopes for Nanang to continue his battle against the museum authorities and the government for his rights to have his name and work recognized as a puppet-maker.
How did the Wayang Kancil begin? Hopefully I’ll have enough evidence to uncover this aspect of cultural history.
You can see more of the highlights of performances we watched in the video I made below:
This video includes recordings of Wayang Kulit (Purwa), Wayang Kancil and Wayang Beber performances.
Although the fieldwork has officially ended, the investigation of the Wayang Kancil has just begun.
The journey continues
wayangkancil 
