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| I Made Sidja “The Maestro” |
Shadow puppet plays have been one of the many cultural attractions enjoyed by the many Bali luxury villas guests.
One of its well-known puppet masters, considered the most knowledgeable living exponent of wayang parwa, the shadow theatre of Bali in Indonesia is I Made Sidja from the village of Bona.
Dalang I Made Sidja is considered to be the creator of Wayang Arja, which essentially means puppet opera that integrates the aesthetic elements of the wayang puppets and the Arja (“opera”) dance-drama, along with his teacher, the late masked-dancer and puppeteer Ketut Rindha.
First performed in 1976 at the Gianyar Palace by Dalang I Made Sidja, the Wayang arja was invented after the dramatari arja became less popular because of the presence of drama gong, a contemporary performing art that combined elements of modern theater with Balinese traditional theater.
Dalang I Made Sidja is also versed in all the traditional Balinese performing arts, including mask dance (topeng) and opera (arja). He is also popular as he leads Paripurna Arts Group and is in demand for performances that are religiously motivated.
In the late 1990s, Dalang I Made Sidja, in collaboration with Shadowlight Theatre in San Francisco had made an experimental production titled Sida Karya.
Nowadays, Dalang I Made Sidja is not so familiar with the modern generation.
So let’s get to him.
Dalang I Made Sidja is an eccentric puppeteer from Bona village in Gianyar regency used to be a very famous artist, one of the Balinese traditional arts maestros.
Born in 1933, Sidja also created wayang topeng (masked puppet show) and wayang suling, a puppet show accompanied by suling (flute) music, aside from Wayang arja.
A father of six, Sidja also founded the Sanggar Seni Paripurna, an art studio for neglected school drop-outs and unemployed graduates. The studio is known to provide many books, musical instruments, puppets and materials for the art creations, such as cow leather to make puppets as well as teaching all children to perform and also how to make the art equipment.
Sidja is not merely a puppeteer, he is also multi-talented artist. Sidja is also a dancer, a wood carver, a stone carver, a builder of bade (the tower used in Balinese ngaben cremation rituals), a puppet maker and many other things.
For him, arts are his life and believe that a real artist must have all-round artistic abilities.
Having dropped out of elementary school, without any skill in English, or any other foreign languages in his younger days, Sidja, now 79, however, still traveled around the world to perform.
Sidja had already visited many countries, including Australia, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden.
The Bali governor’s Dharma Kusuma Madya arts award, the Wija Kusuma award from the Gianyar regency and the traditional arts maestro award from the President of Indonesia in 2008, as well as an award from the California-based gamelan group Sekar Jaya, and one from the government of Sweden are among his numerous awards for dedication in preserving Balinese traditional arts.
When asked during an interview with Bali Daily’s Ni Komang Erviani about the difference between wayang performances past and present.
Sidja answered, “Nowadays, people don’t have as much interest in watching puppet shows like the older generations used to. Young people prefer pop and rock music. I understand, maybe it is because of the use of the ancient Kawi language during performances, which makes the show difficult to understand for common people, especially the youngsters. Amid this modernity, nowadays, people prefer everything that’s instant in nature. There’s a lack of depth. That is a pity. They don’t understand the deep philosophy of life that a puppet performance can give to its audience.”
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