Covid-19 Puppet Literacy

1. What is Wayang Literacy?
Wayang, also known as wajang, is a traditional form of puppet theatre play originally found in the cultures of Java, Indonesia. The traditional form of puppet theatre art found in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, wherein a dramatic story is told through shadows thrown by puppets and sometimes combined with human characters. 

The art form celebrates Indonesian culture and artistic talent; its origins are traced to the spread of Hinduism in the medieval era and the arrival of leather-based puppet arts called thalubomalata from southern India. Warasi (Wayang Literasi) is one of the heritage of Nusantara cultures. Puppet is also an educational medium that provides character values to run life. And literacy is a general term that refers to a set of abilities and individual skills in reading, writing, speaking, and solving problems at a certain level of expertise needed in daily life. Thus, literacy cannot be separated from language skills.

 2. What is the relation between wayang and national culture?
With this puppet we can learn a lot about our own national culture, especially the culture of the nation which is located on the island of Java. And the number of wayang stories is more prominent in our culture, so we as a generation now we can know our legendary stories from our ancestors and can be made into life lessons and become moral values for us. 

The connection is Warasi is one form of community care in increasing the nation's creativity. From the existence of Warasi at this time we can use it for learning and practicing manners and from Warasi we can influence the nation's culture by holding a Warasi show in schools or in our area like the video I shared above.

3. What creativity arose during the pandemic?

The creativity that we can create during this pandemic is Masks and puppets. And that can make us more creative and also not bored at home.

4.  What wisdom is gained from this creativity?
Wisdom that we can get for example:
   a) Masks namely we can be more creative by using used materials and then making it a work.   This time we really need a mask to prevent contracting the corona virus.
  b) Puppets namely we can further build our creativity and we can improve and maintain the artwork of our ancestors.

Check out this video: https://youtu.be/8NbuQyWEU1s