1 Williams, Raymond, The Sociology of Culture (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995; first published 1981), p. 156Google Scholar.

2 Lash, Scott, ‘Reflexivity and Its Doubles: Structure, Aesthetics, Community’, in Beck, Ulrich, Giddens, Anthony and Lash, Scott, Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), pp. 110–73, here p. 126Google Scholar.

3 Cohen, Matthew Isaac, ‘Traditional and Post-traditional Wayang in Java Today’, in Posner, Dassia, Bell, John and Orenstein, Claudia, eds., The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 178–91Google Scholar; and Cohen, ‘Global Modernities and Post-traditional Shadow Puppetry in Contemporary Southeast Asia’, Third Text, 31, 3 (2016), pp. 188–206Google Scholar.

4 Cf. Fabian, Johannes, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983)Google Scholar. Wayang in Indonesia is, of course, perceived differently than it is outside its country of origin. Most Indonesians view wayang as part of local heritage, and are unlikely to have any knowledge of its variability across different ethnic groups, nor of how wayang has changed over time. Wayang devotees, in contrast, appreciate wayang precisely to the extent that it can address contemporary issues – for them wayang is fully coeval with other media and social life – and how it expresses their own local ethnic identity (Sundanese, Cirebonese, north Balinese, etc.).

5 For a thorough critique of the misreading of the concept of rasa in Richard Schechner's training method Rasaboxes™, see Mason, David, ‘Rasa, “Rasaesthetics” and Dramatic Theory as Performance Packaging’, Theatre Research International, 31, 1 (2006), pp. 69–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Milbank, John, ‘MacIntyre on Tradition’, in Marshall, David, ed., Tradition and Modernity: Christian and Muslim Perspectives (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013), pp. 157–68, esp. pp. 163, 165Google Scholar.

7 MacIntyre, Alasdair, ‘Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative and the Philosophy of Science’, The Monist, 60, 4 (1997), pp. 453–72, here p. 460CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 On the distinction between experts and guardians of tradition, see Anthony Giddens, ‘Living in a Post-traditional Society’, in Beck, Giddens and Lash, Reflexive Modernization, pp. 56–109, here pp. 64–6.

9 Becker, Howard S., McCall, Michal M., Morris, Lori V. and Meshejian, Paul, ‘Theatres and Communities: Three Scenes’, Social Problems, 36, 2 (1989), pp. 93–116, here p. 93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 The Saptawara festival was initiated by the puppeteer Haji Mansyur in 1994 and ran annually until the end of the decade. It was suspended in the early 2000s but revived in 2017 with government support and funding.

11 On Gegesik as a target of development see Prasadja, Buddy, Pembangunan Desa dan Masalah Kepemimpinannya (Jakarta: Rajawali, 1974)Google Scholar.

12 Discussion with Basari, 20 July 1997. Basari went on to say that without books he would be repot or ‘in trouble’. Basari frequently borrowed and photocopied books from me. Well before him, Ki Arma, who lived in the neighbouring village of Kalideres but was considered a Gegesik puppeteer, was a consumer of wayang books published in central Java, and introduced new dramaturgies into the local Gegesik wayang style based on his reading. Arma's use of non-local sources was said to have ‘ruined’ (rusak) the local wayang style, in the opinion of one senior Gegesik puppeteer. Discussion with Wituk, 16 November 1997.

13 Personal communication with Jan Mrázek.

14 Cohen, Matthew Isaac, ‘Contemporary Wayang in Global Contexts’, Asian Theatre Journal, 24, 2 (2007), pp. 338–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cohen, , Inventing the Performing Arts: Modernity and Tradition in Colonial Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Cohen, ‘Contemporary Wayang’, p. 364.

16 Tech in Asia, at www.techinasia.com/why-facebook-is-so-popular-in-indonesia, accessed 23 June 2018.

17 In Internet discourse, the English loanword fan is used alongside the Indonesian equivalent penggemar.

18 Discussion with Dewanto Sukistono, 15 July 2018.

19 Martin Heidegger, cited in Critchley, Simon, ‘You Are Not Your Own: On the Nature of Faith’, in Welchman, A., ed., Politics of Religion/Religions of Politics (Boston: Springer, 2014), pp. 10–27, here p. 12Google Scholar. On Jlitheng's peer, the late Slamet Gundono, see Varela, Miguel Escobar, ‘Heirlooms of the Everyday: The Material Performances of Slamet Gundono’, Theatre Research International, 41, 1 (2016), pp. 53–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 About this Group: Description, Posko Dalang Nusantara, at www.facebook.com/groups/180670111974000/about, accessed 23 June 2018.

21 MacIntyre, Alasdair, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), pp. 65–6Google Scholar.

22 Bima is a talented shadow puppet carver and colourist, but finds these crafts (particularly carving) too time-consuming and normally farms out puppet making to other Yogyakarta artisans.

23 On museum artefacts as creative technologies see Thomas, Nicholas, The Return of Curiosity: What Museums are Good for in the 21st Century (London: Reaktion, 2016)Google Scholar.

24 On the Angst collection see Cohen, Matthew Isaac, ‘The Dr Walter Angst and Sir Henry Angest Collection of Indonesian Puppets: The Structure of the Conjuncture’, Asian Theatre Journal, 35, 2 (2018), pp. 300–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Purjadi's Facebook page, at www.facebook.com/dalang.purjadi, accessed 22 June 2018.

26 These VHS cassettes were only available to watch in Leiden, however. Other academic projects in the 1990s involving recording wayang include the South and Southeast Asia Video Archive based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Balinese Television Project, a collaboration between the Indonesian conservatoire STSI Denpasar and SOAS, University of London.

27 See, e.g. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDz3ZCwdCgg. These videos were originally made for Senawangi, the national wayang organization. Kuwato, another ISI lecturer, provides the voice-over narration. On Purbo Asmoro see Kathryn Emerson, ‘Transforming Wayang for Contemporary Audiences: Dramatic Expression in Purbo Asmoro's Style, 1989–2015’, unpublished PhD thesis, Leiden University, 2016.

28 On the maintenance of performance norms through contest, with specific reference to Sundanese wayang golek, see Weintraub, Andrew N., ‘Contest-ing Culture: Sundanese Wayang Golek Purwa Competitions in New Order Indonesia’, Asian Theatre Journal, 18, 1 (2001), pp. 87–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 This group had 22,142 members as of 1 July 2018.

30 Posted by ‘Benzema Jhidate Menyonyoe’ on 13 July 2018 from RSUD Panembahan Senopati Bantul. For a full recording of this performance see Pagelaran Wayang Ki Seno Nugroho Lakon: WAHYU TRIANGGA, at https://youtu.be/QkNl_LY6Kek, accessed 1 November 2018.

31 Pagelaran Wayang Kulit Ki Seno Nugroho Lakon MIKUKUHAN, performed for the Bersih Dusun Gunturan in the hamlet of Gunturan, Triharjo, Pandak, Bantul, Yogyakarta, on 13–14 July 2019. See https://youtu.be/_7jgnQXaO-4, accessed 1 November 2018.

32 So, at Seno's performance at TBY, Seno asked my PhD student Sietske Rijpkema and me to sing songs from the wayang repertoire; Sutrisno Hartana, a gamelan teacher and performing-arts scholar based in Canada who has been following Seno for years, played gender briefly; and a spectator from Sumatra who had been spending the last month attending wayang performances around Yogyakarta was also hailed.

33 Bridle, James, New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future (London: Verso, 2018), n.p.Google Scholar Bridle takes the term ‘code/space’ from the discipline of geography, defining it as an ‘interweaving of computation with the built environment and daily experience … such that the environment and the experience of it actually cease to function in the absence of code’. Bridle's prime example is the airport – when systems crash it instantly transforms ‘into a huge shed filled with empty people’ (n.p.) – but argues that with the ubiquity of smartphones and other smart devices increasingly the entire world is becoming a code/space.

34 At www.facebook.com/pages/story/reader/?page_story_id=1689979914346159, posted 29 April 2018, accessed 24 June 2018.

35 Edible birds’ nests are a Chinese delicacy and a lucrative business, with some reports estimating that exports could account for up to 0.5 per cent of Indonesia's GDP. Jordan, David, ‘Globalisation and Bird's Nest Soup’, International Development Planning Review, 26, 1 (2004), pp. 97–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Basari, , Demon Abduction: A Wayang Ritual Drama from West Java, trans. Cohen, Matthew Isaac (Jakarta: The Lontar Foundation, 1999)Google Scholar.

37 Purjadi's Facebook page, at www.facebook.com/dalang.purjadi, accessed 16 April 2018.

38 Holt, Claire, Art in Indonesia: Continuities and Change (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967), p. 149Google Scholar.