Pejeng the Moon Temple Festival

While tourist performances like this one abound on Bali, finding an authentic local performance is a challenge. The Balinese do not live by clocks and schedules the way we do in the West, so there is no “Arts Page” directory to the week’s performances. Private telephones on Bali are rare, so even if one knows a dalang and wants to know where he will be performing, you have to contact him in person to get his schedule, which may change many times over. The best ways to find authentic performances is by word of mouth and serendipity. 

Since wayang kulit performances are often part of religious festivals, my search took me to the Moon Festival at the large temple in Pejeng, which is about 20 minutes drive from Ubud. The important thing to remember when visiting the Hindu temples on Bali is that one must be properly dressed. In most cases, this means wearing a sash if you are wearing long trousers or a sarong and sash if you are wearing shorts. Tourists without either can usually find someone to rent them one for one or two thousand rupiyah (less than 15 cents). The driver who had transported me to Pejeng asked the first local person he found who could speak English on a crowded corner if he could rent me a sarong and head cloth. This proved to be a Balinese O’Henry encounter of the first order, for Mr. Suta would turn out to be a link to an important puppetry contact. 

Suta, a physical education teacher, took me back to his home, a typical Balinese compound that was a short walk through pitch-black side streets from the temple. Seated in his guest pavilion (the family, ceremonial and cooking pavilions are separate), he asked many questions about me and where I was from. He was enormously impressed to learn that I teach at the University of Massachusetts, because as a phys-ed teacher he knew that Massachusetts was the birthplace of basketball and volleyball! Forthcoming and eager to share everything he could about Balinese culture and the Hindu religion, he volunteered that he is friendly with the dalang who would be performing at Pejeng Temple later in the week and offered to arrange for me to meet him and attend the performance.

Suta showed me how to wrap my sarong so it draped nicely in front, and he tied my sash and head cloth. We walked back to the Temple where he gave me a complete tour, with full explanations of everything that was going on. Pejeng Temple is dedicated to the moon, and this annual celebration of the full moon, which hangs in splendor overhead and can be viewed, perfectly framed by an ornate arch. The main temple courtyard is crowded with people praying while the Ramayana is read in Sanskrit over a PA system. In smaller temples, individuals made their offerings and prayed with flower petals between their fingers and in their ears as priests and their assistants sprinkled them with holy water and pressed small bits of rice to their foreheads, symbolizing the affirmation of the life force. Occasionally, one of three gamelan orchestras provides music, and in another section of the complex, actually a separate temple altogether, there was food being served. Outside was a carnival atmosphere with vendors of all sorts. 

Later that week, I returned to Pejeng where Suta took me to meet Awak Agung, the dalang and served as my translator. When we arrive, I was surprised to see that he also was coming through the gate at the same time as we were. Knowing that the dalang was shortly to perform a piece that would last all night, I asked him why he was not resting. He responded that the day of the performance is a day when he had to be at his most alert, attuned to all the local gossip, which Indonesian puppeteers incorporate into their performances, as well as to the inspirational sounds of insects and birds. Later that evening, Suta escorted me to the wayang cepak, a more vernacular version of wayang kulit, at Pejeng Temple to see the performance. 

When I arrived at the temple, the Full Moon ceremony was still in full swing. The gamelan orchestra was playing, and the Ramayana was still blaring out over the PA system. It was hard to believe that the puppet performance would soon start, too, in the midst of all this chaos. I entered the pavilion where the performance would take place to find that Suta had reserved me a front row seat. Behind the shadow screen, there was another large audience of men, who traditionally watch the performance from the puppeteer’s vantage point. Finally, the other distractions in the temple stopped or quieted down, and the performance began. This dalang was exceptional. It was very much like a first-class stand-up comic performance with the performer completely in control in terms of comic timing and vocal sound. Thanks to his skill and the array of comic voices, I found myself laughing, even though I did not understand the context. And the large audience was 100% engaged, laughing uproariously and responding to every nuance.