Indonesian Puppets

Many of the Puppetientists have been interested in these unique puppets from Indonesia, who traditionally star in epic puppet productions of the Hindu story The Ramayana. So... here are some pictures of how they are put together. There are two of these beautiful handmade puppets currently residing at the PuppetWorks, and they have some seemingly subtle differences in their construction which actually influence the overall physicality of the characters. One is a clown character (L), and the other is one of the main heroes of the story: Hanuman the Monkey God (R).

Clown

Hanuman

First, in terms of basic body construction, there are just a few main parts: the head, torso/shoulders, body rod, arms, and armrods. And yet there is a surprising amount of articulation that can be gotten out of them.

the head in place (shirt pulled up)

The body rod travels through the rough-hewn torso and shoulders and its pointy, tight-fitting tip securely presses into a hole in the bottom of the head, which sits in a hole in the top of the torso.

At the bottom of the body rod, there is a little play between its maximum 'up' position (created by the lower part of the handle/rod being too big to go through the hole in the bottom of the torso), and the handle part of the rod is flat, allowing it to be much more easily manipulated by a single hand than a round dowel.

exploded view of torso and body/head rod assembly

And finally... the rope arms of the Clown puppet give it a distinctly looser, floppier, and overall more comical movement style than the elegant dancelike movements possible with Hanuman's loosely jointed arms with free but limited shoulders and elbows.

 And finally here is a video of a super rough performance demo that (kind of) shows the variety of movement that you can get out of this kind of puppet rig. The head and shoulders can move independently or together (up/down/right/left), and the arms augment the character.

 

If you decide to try to tackle your very own Indonesian style puppet, let me know... I'd love to add your pics to this page!




puppetz rule!