Suratno: Recent Innovations in Javanese Wayang Kulit (interview)

Suratno, a graduate of and, until recently, director of the touring gamelan at the Akademi Seni Karawitan Indonesia (ASKI) in Surakarta, Java, is known primarily as a gamelan director and gender player in Indonesia. He is also a dhalang (puppeteer), and while in the United States this year as a Fulbright scholar, he directed wayang kulit (shadow puppet play) performances at both the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Oberlin College. He is currently a graduate student and director of the gamelan at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. In this interview, conducted by René Lysloff and Kent Devereaux on August 19, 1985, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Suratno talks about traditional wayang, what is entailed in being a dhalang, and some of the recent innovations in wayang performance at ASKI.