Are we transgressing on sacred ground? Wayang Kulit is an ancient, revered tradition.. are our attempts at it a mockery of the whole thing? We're not even using the proper puppets and a PhD on Wayang Kulit from Havard is going to be watching the show.
Are we out of our minds? Are we committing sacrilege? Or are we right to perform it as we see fit? Maybe we're doing the tradition a favour?
When we were talking about putting the jeans on the actors, some of us raised that it might be disrespectful to the whole epic and the rest of us agreed with it. Why? We've seen Ravana in sport shoes and we're going along with other modern touches. Why are some things okay and others not? As we put in our own cultures and feels to something so ancient and epic (religious even), we might feel that we're tainting something pure. Is this feeling of tainting justified, wrong, okay, confused? Other countries and ages have successfully adpated and assimilated the story of the Ramayana into their cultures and traditions. Can we do the same and justifiably add in our modern cultures (which we all know is western influenced)?
questions questions questions.
Are we out of our minds? Are we committing sacrilege? Or are we right to perform it as we see fit? Maybe we're doing the tradition a favour?
When we were talking about putting the jeans on the actors, some of us raised that it might be disrespectful to the whole epic and the rest of us agreed with it. Why? We've seen Ravana in sport shoes and we're going along with other modern touches. Why are some things okay and others not? As we put in our own cultures and feels to something so ancient and epic (religious even), we might feel that we're tainting something pure. Is this feeling of tainting justified, wrong, okay, confused? Other countries and ages have successfully adpated and assimilated the story of the Ramayana into their cultures and traditions. Can we do the same and justifiably add in our modern cultures (which we all know is western influenced)?
questions questions questions.
posted by undergradbyday at 9:39 AM
1 Comments:
what about all of the films that have had questionable depictions of Jesus Christ?
to me, post-modernism (and to some degree theatre) is about questioning what we have always been told as true. religious values are paramount in having been told to you from the time you were born, so i feel like questioning them (not refuting them, but questioning them), is always a good practice.
there is little you can put on a stage without offending someone. the point is we want to be tasteful and if we do something different we want to be doing it for a REASON. and i think we are.
as far as the PhD goes, i can't speak for him. but i dont think we are "mocking" shadow puppetry. we are doing our best to make it work in a new way. even if it isn't perfect, it is getting at least our class (if not some of the audience) to be exposed to shadow puppetry for the first time. we are increasing awareness about the art form and i think that can never be a bad thing.
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