Surakarta Coronation Week Festivities

This week in Solo the royal family is celebrating their coronation ceremonies with all sorts of art events, concerts and parades around the palace, the Kraton. The family I understand is pretty much penniless and other government officials are actually funding these events, but they have mostly taken place at the Kraton.
On Sunday and Monday Pak Tristuti's works were performed in the Wayang Orang tradition which is the equivalent of Indonesian musical theater. The actors are also dancers and singers in the Javanese style. The costumes are quite spectacular, their faces may be painted or they may wear masks in order to represent their characters which are the same as the wayang kulit, shadow puppet theater, characters. The actor's costumes look exactly like the kulit puppets with crowns, jewels and body ornaments, bright clothes with ornate draping and folds, weapons and lots of gold. Their movements are slow, articulated, expressive and at times very subtle just like Javanese dance. So, the wayang orang incorporates the movements of Javanese dance with the Hindu stories and highly stylized characters. The characters even have particular ways of standing or moving depending on each character much like the wayang kulit.

Tuesday night an extravagant Wayang Kulit performance was put together that incorporated 3 dalangs using a very long screen with 3 lights in which they collaboratively tell a story and during certain intervals there would be dance performances on a stage in front of the screen. Also, it is much more common now to watch Wayang Kulit from the dalang side which is technically backstage than from the shadow side. Both larger events that I have gone to have had chairs set up on the "backstage" section and nothing on the shadow section. There are always some who will watch from the screen side but most people will watch the puppets and the dalang. And in this case three dalangs, dozens of performers and singers at the palace pendopo.