CHRISTOPHE MOURE
Christophe Moure lives near Paris. He is a gamelan musician, the Javanese traditional music, as well as a wayang kulit puppeteer, the main Indonesian shadow puppet theater form. Christophe teaches at the “city of music” (cité de la musique) in Paris, at the Créteil conservatory and at the Nanterre University. He also produces shows featuring wayang kulit puppets and adapted to French; but he also creates more contemporary performances mixing gamelan instruments with electronic music.
INTERVIEW – september 2018
What is gamelan?
The gamelan is a collective, instrumental ensemble, which most instruments are in bronze, like gongs or metallophones. There are also bow and pluck string instruments, singing, flutes, and xylophones. This ensemble can include twenty or even twenty-five musicians. It can be played for the music only, but it is also related to the wayang kulit, which cannot be performed without gamelan music. Javanese dance and Opera are also related to gamelan.
What is the shadow puppet theater about?
The shadow puppet theater relates epics, and especially the two main epics in Indonesian culture: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. They originated in India but have traveled to Indonesia a long time ago. There are also local epics like Panji’s, or the wayang mana – “mana” includes all stories about the prophets’ uncle, Ami Ramza. These epics were orally transmitted from one generation to the other, and they had a great influence not only in Indonesia but also in all South-East Asia. These stories are never told from the beginning to the end. In performing arts, only short episodes are told, and during long performances. We perform six or seven hours, only to tell a short excerpt of the epic! And this excerpt is chosen carefully, according to the event the performers are invited to. For example if it’s a wedding, we’ll choose an episode where a prestigious character is going to get married, and we take this opportunity to give advice to the new husband and wife. There are also events related to the agricultural life. At the end of the harvesting season for example, the community invites a wayang to tell a specific story involving the rice goddess, and an excerpt of the Mahabharata can be mixed into the story… This creates a kind of syncretism between the local culture and the Indian epics. This culture is rich and dense.
Are these traditional stories relevant in today’s world?
Absolutely! These stories include great philosophical values. Some people translate “Mahabharata” as “the great story of Humanity”. Because there is a great diversity of characters; they represent all human personalities you can encounter in your everyday life. So it’s a great way to make allusions to Javanese people’s life, but also to Western people’s and others’ life. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are especially interesting because they are not stories with a positive and a negative aspect, they are much more complex than that. You can compare the Mahabharata’s narrative to Shakespeare’s, with characters who don’t have a choice but to attack their own family…
How did you start playing gamelan music and getting interested in wayang kulit?
First I learned piano at the conservatory during ten years. Then, when I was a student, I wanted to learn about jazz music and I took jazz guitar at the conservatory. But when you discover jazz you realize it’s a music style that is really open to world music. As I have Indonesian origins, I naturally became curious about Indonesian traditional music. So I started researching and I took gamelan classes at the “city of music” in Paris, where I had learned about this ensemble for the first time. At the beginning, I didn’t like it! I found the music was strange, very different from classical music or jazz. Really it was a cultural clash and it took some time before I appreciated this music. One year, people were able to take gamelan as an option for the Bachelor Degree, so buses full of students arrived to the “city of music”, and they needed teachers. At that time I was a musician, I was playing gamelan not for too long, but it was enough for me to give punctual initiation classes. After a year, I wanted to make my life around this music. So I decided to leave for Indonesia and I took opportunity of an Indonesian State program, Dharma Siswa, which allowed me to go to an Indonesian University during a year. So I started studying at the conservatory, and at the end I stayed there five years. I was lucky enough to meet a puppeteer who took care of me, and he became my teacher and my friend. He gave me the opportunity to learn more about this art form and to perform at traditional events, like religious celebrations or important events in Javanese life. This was an amazing experience.
How do people see the wayang kulit in Indonesia?
The wayang kulit is still very popular. It is more prestigious than other shadow puppet theater forms because it is related to palaces’ history, where it mostly developed. So today, you can find classical wayang kulit forms, as they were performed in palaces, but you can also encounter partly contemporary forms, that are conceived as an entertainment. Traditionally, one performance can last eight hours in a row, but today you can see one-hour-and-a-half shows, where repertoires get mixed, in a very dense and intense form. Sometimes even, it has nothing to do with tradition – for example in Yogyakarta, there is a hip-hop wayang, where the dalang (the puppeteer) uses hip-hop codes, he raps in Javanese, uses modified puppets…
What do you think about this evolution?
I think that, in a way, it is important to preserve tradition, to have it transmitted and studied. But on the other hand, society evolves, and I find it interesting that artists who know the traditions develop them and keep creating, if they want to. I think that, the more you know the basis, the more you can create a relevant, contemporary performance. Without solid bases though, interpretation and adaptation are very difficult, and often this gives superficial shows. Considering society’s evolution, I don’t think it would possible to keep performing traditional forms forever as they were performed in the past. The needs are not the same. I believe if you respect tradition, you don’t want to keep it like this like in a box.
How do you envision the future of gamelan and wayang kulit?
I hope wayang kulit won’t become only a form of entertainment. My puppeteering teacher would tell me: Muslims have the mosque, Christians have the church, Hindus have their temple, and Javanese have the wayang kulit. This really means something: the wayang kulit is full of spiritual and philosophical values. Of course it can make you laugh, and I also think it is important not to be too serious about wayang kulit. When you want to educate someone, if you do it in a didactic way, without any part of humor, it won’t work. I find that Javanese people do that very well: they mention the divine and the human worlds, involving a great sense of humor, and mixing all this in a ritual… But if that becomes too much an entertainment, like on TV, it is a shame. I believe we have to keep this philosophical aspect. Because when the wayang kulit was created, there was a will to educate people.
I feel like a wayang kulit performance is extremely intense for the artists. What do you think?
For the puppeteer, indeed it is very intense. And this can be surprising for the audience. He has to stay in that same position during eight hours in a row, he’s the one who performs all characters, and at the same time he is the conductor. He cannot be distracted a single time. That’s a real physical, and also spiritual performance. The dalang manipulates the characters; he kind of becomes a god himself. It is quite fascinating.
The format of the show in Java is interesting. One tends to translate “wayang kulit” into “shadow puppet theater”, which is correct in a way. But when you go to Java you get surprised because the audience is all around the stage: in front of the shadows, but also on the musicians’ and the puppeteer’s side. The puppets are intricately carved and painted, with a lot of colors. So the notion of shadow theater isn’t exactly true. There is even more audience on the side of the puppeteer and musicians. Traditionally, the shadows are for the host, for the one who invites the musicians and the puppeteer, because the story is for them, it includes specific advice. When you watch the shadow, you get less distracted by the rest. Whereas the guests, the neighbors, they’re more free, they can go all around the show. People don’t watch a performance in an intense way during eight hours in a row. Audience members sit on the side of the shadows, then they go to the side of the gamelan, then they go eat something, they go to the neighbor’s, they come back at some point during the night… That’s the occasion to make a great party and to gather all together.
This is interesting for artists who come from Europe or from outside Indonesia. This makes the artist’s position less “holy” inside society. This happened to me sometimes while performing: during the show, someone would come and sit behind me, because they were curious, they wanted to talk with me, ask me about my life… while I was performing! The first time, it’s a culture shock. You can get upset, you can say, “wait, I’m being serious, I am in my artist position right now”… But the border between the artist and the audience is thinner than in the West. This makes you think about the role of the artist in society.
Do you intend to transmit a message through your art?
The great message of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, is that, in life, you have many paths to choose, and you have to be guided by a fair action. And sometimes, a fair action isn’t what looks like the easiest one. You have to be guided by what’s above you, and the collective is more important than the individual. I believe this is a very interesting value.
What I especially like in Indonesian arts, is that it’s for everyone. We don’t create shows for young audiences, shows for seven to nine-year-old audiences, and other ones for ten to fifteen-year-old audiences… Everyone can understand the performance according to their own spiritual level. Maybe a child will see more things than a wise person… But in general a child will like the puppets, the colors, the characters’ acrobatics, and he doesn’t necessarily understand the words. Then, someone who’s more advanced will understand the story. And a wiser person maybe will understand another aspect of the story. So it is art for everyone.
PORTFOLIO – A WAYANG KULIT PERFORMANCE IN YOGYAKARTA