Shadow Puppets in Solo…

This weekend in Indonesia, I performed in a shadow puppet play about the powerful Draupadi from the Mahabharata. The gifted dhalang (puppeteer) was Ki Purbo Asmoro, with whom I last performed at Asia Society in New York. For the comedic interlude of our Sufi-inspired performance in Manhattan, Pak Purbo brought out an Obama puppet–which stole the show.

Pak Purbo’s performance this week-end in Java featured a strong, female protagonist on the hunt for justice after surviving an attempted sexual assault. Despite the intense storyline, there was still time in the play for an unrelated comic interlude–for which I joined Pak Purbo on-stage. I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity to see Pak Purbo again and perform with him on his home turf in Solo–the spiritual heart of Java…