A classical Wayang Beber Performance in 1900One of some kinds of wayang in East Java is Wayang Beber - they have nearly vanished. The most popular of all forms is Wayang Beber Pacitan. This kind of wayang is neither made of wood not leather but paintings drawn on a scrolled sheets of bark paper. Every scene in the story is painted on a piece of paper in rotation.
Since when this kind of wayang has been found in Pacitan exactly is not known yet, nevertheless the age of the existing wayang Beber has reached an age of 12 generations up to the present.
The performer (Dalang) gives a sign, the gamelan
orchestra (or a musician with a violin-like instrument) begins to play
and the Dalang unrolls a picture related to the story. Then, speaking
and singing, he narrates the story in more detail. In this manner, in
the course of the evening he unrolls several pictures. The pictures are
shown one at a time and are successively unrolled. Each picture
represents a story or part of a story. The story narrated is taken from
the life of Panji or a story based on the mythical Javanese Jenggala Kingdom, or the Mahabharata and Ramayana epics. The fiction of wayang Beber
performance is not only an entertainment but also as media of
education, which principally a crime finally is defeated by virtue.
There
are some scrolls owned by some families which are not used for a
performance, however in certain months every year they are used as
traditional ceremony by cleaning off the magic power in those objects.
