GENDENG VILLAGE Center of Wayang Kulit

FOR LOVERS AND COLLECTORS of wayang kulit (leather puppets), Gendeng village in Bangunjiwo yakarta, it is where tens of artisans ;prodsubdistrict, Kasihan district, Bantu regency, Yogyakarta, is well known.

Located some seven kilometers southwest of downtown Yogyakarta, it is where tens of artisans produce Yogyakarta style wayang kulit of high quality.

It is therefore not surprising to learn that the village is not just well known among wayang kulit lovers and collectors, but also among noted puppeteers such as Ki Timbul Hadiprayitno and Ki Hadi Sugito, said to have puppets made in Gendeng in their wayang kulit collections for show purposes.

“We prioritize quality. As for myself, It’s not just a matter of generating revenue but more importantly a desire to preserve leather puppets,” said local artisan Sagio, 67, the owner of a puppet handicraft workshop.

The history of Gendeng as a center of wayang kulit production started back in 1925 when a newcomer named Bundu came to the village and introduced puppetry, including how to make wayang kulit, to the local villagers.he later had a pupil named Walijo, also known as Atmo Sukarto, or more commonly, Pujo. It was Pujo who then introduced the puppet handicraft industry to the village in the 1930s.

Gendeng gained its golden years a puppet production center especially during the rule of Indonesia’s second president Soeharto, who was also known as a wayangkulit show lover.

“I was once sent to Japan to promote wayang kulit there,” said Sagio, adding that he spent a year there from 1969 to 1970 for the purpose.

Ever since, he said, he was frequently sent to other countries for the same reason. Sometimes he even visited a country more than once. Among the countries he visited were the Netherlands, France, England, Hungary, New Zealand, the Unites State, India, china, Thailand and Singapore.

Sagio himself said he started learning about puppet making when he was 11 years of age. He said he first learned from Pujo, then directly learned it from Bundu. When Bundu passed away. Sagio frequently went to the Yogyakarta Palace to have a closer look at the palace’s wayang kulit collection to learn about their fine and high quality.

This accounts for why Sagio is well known as an artisan specializing in fine and high quality wayang kulit in the Yogyakarta style, although he is also capable of making puppets in the Surakarta style.

Workshops

He said he initially also learned puppetry and was once a puppeteer but he finally decided to focus on puppet making because he realized that no formal institution for puppet making was available.

“There were schools for puppeteers, but none for puppet makers, that is even still the case now,” he said.

Gendeng’s glow as a center of wayang kulit production faded away following Soeharto’s fall in 1998, leaving only about 50 artisans in the village.

Wayang kulit handicraft showrooms and workshops are mostly centered in the area around the subdistrict hall, as the hall is also located in Gendeng. Among the well-known workshops ar those of Sukono, SAntoso, Sabarno and Suprih.

“Many of them were previously my apprentices and now they have their own workshops,” said Sagio.

He added that he previously took on apprentices to be trained as wayang kulit artisans in his workshop, but he has not done so since 1998. Nowadays he only receives groups of students or tourists to experience puppet making at his workshop. Some stay for up to a week, others just for three to four hours.

Other workshops in the village also do the same. Apart from selling puppet products at different prices depending on their quality level and size, they also offer puppet making experiences.

“There are always tourists coming to the village to enjoy the experience,” said Sagio, adding that some 75% of the tourists visiting Gendeng were foreigners.

He said an average of 20 foreign tourists visited his workshop every moth, giving him a monthly revenue of about IDR 20 million.

Products on offer in the workshops include puppets of the standard size for both collections and souvenirs, puppets of bigger and even huge sizes for decoration, puppets of smaller sizes for bookmarks or wedding souvenirs, and puppet key-rings.

In the village, tourists can also see the process of turning animal leather into parchments. For this they can go to Suyoto’s.

“I need at least three days to get this leather ready,” said Suyoto, 57, while currying a sheet of buffalo leather spread on a structure to be turned into parchment.

The process starts by submerging sun-dried buffalo leather overnight in a nearby river to soften it, then spreading it the following morning on a structure to dry and curry.

“The best leather for making puppets is buffalo,” said Suyoto, whose workshop is located some 100 meters to the east of Sagio’s.

To get to the village, visitors have to take a taxi or private vehicle, as no public transportation heading to Gendeng is available. However, it is just a stone’s throw from the renowned ceramic handicraft production center, Kasongan. Both Kasongan and Gendeng are under the same jurisdiction of Bangunjiwo district administration.

In fact, both are part of the subdistrict’s leading toruism and industrial package called KAJIGELEM, an abbreviation of Kasongan, Jipangan, Gendeng and Lemahdadi.

Jipangan is a bambbo handicraft production center while Lemahdadi is a stone statue production center. [Sources from the Jakarta Post, August 2018|words by: Sri Wahyuni]