CATEGORY

Voices of the Puppet Masters is an in-depth look at the rod puppet theater of West Java. Lavishly illustrated with almost 200 photographs and drawings, this book is the most authoritative work ever published in English on this six hundred-year-old art form.

Based on five years of intensive research in Indonesia, including hundreds of hours of discussions and interviews with puppet masters and craftsmen. The author and her Indonesian collaborator visited the artists in their homes, in villages scattered across the length and breadth of Java, attending performances, and even participating in an exorcism ceremony. Performances typically last six hours, an extravaganza of dance and theater, accompanied by a gamelan orchestra of percussion instruments and a singer.