Salamanca Arts Centre is thrilled to be partnering with Footscray Community Arts Centre to host Indonesia’s internationally recognised Papermoon Puppet Theatre in Tasmania March 10-13 2015. Artists and pupeteers, Anton Fajri and Wulang Sunu will visit Salamanca Arts Centre, University of Tasmania Asian Studies in Hobart, and TCOTA in Inveresk holding workshops, visiting classes and screening the company’s celebrated work Mwathirika.
Who are Papermoon?
Indonesia’s Papermoon Puppet Theater is taking an art form we often associate with children’s stories and turning it into a vehicle for addressing the country’s dark history. The company, founded by visual artists Maria Tri Sulistyani and her husband Iwan Effendi, uses whimsical puppets and multimedia performances to recreate personal accounts of the mass jailings and executions that took place in Indonesia in 1965. They are harrowing stories, meant to shed light on the emotion and complexity of a time period often glossed over in contemporary history.
Papermoon’s performances reveal intimate moments of Indonesia’s past, but the company maintains that a discussion of politically driven atrocities is something accessible to international audiences.
Film Screening
March 10 at 6pm in the Peacock Theatre
Screening of a filmed performance of MWATHIRIKA: …a puppet play about the lost history and the history lost of a nation…
The young and innovative puppeteers of Papermoon Puppet Theatre reinvent puppetry to speak to contemporary issues in this new mixed-media production exploring themes of identity, society and Indonesia’s recent past. Mwathirika is a non-verbal, puppet-theater experience which tells the history of the lost, and a lost history. The play is set in 1965, the infamous “Year of Living Dangerously,” when thousands of Indonesians were jailed and murdered.
Puppetry Workshop
March 11 at 2:00-4:00pm in the Peacock Theatre
Puppetry Workshop: Make a puppet out of garbage and newspapers
RSVP: artsandevents@salarts.org.au