Art At-A-Glance: The Demon King Ravana Riding a Mythical Bird

The Ramayana, the epic story of Prince Rama, recounts his trials as he tries to rescue his wife, Sita. This statue, currently on view in the Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance exhibition, depicts the antagonist, Ravana (Balinese: Rawana), on his mount, the bird-like Wilmana. The demon king kidnaps Sita, taking her to his island kingdom of Langka. Uniquely, in the Indonesian version of this Hindu story Ravana rides his mount instead of a chariot when he kidnaps Sita.

Hinduism originated in northern India and moved to Southeast Asia through maritime trade. More than 1,000 years ago, evidence of Hinduism existed in much of Southeast Asia. Though Hinduism is still popular in Southeast Asia, the Indonesian island of Bali is the only place in this vast region where a form of it is dominant even today. One of the ways Hinduism spread was through the telling of the Ramayana, a 1,000-year-old Indian epic.

Especially for Teachers: Download the Ravana handout (pdf), for activities related to this object and the Ramayana (The Story of Rama) to conduct with your students in the museum or in your classroom. For related videos and curriculum guides, visit the Asian Art Museum on ArtBabble (a video site dedicated to art content) and the Asian Art Museum’s  Educator Resources page. We would love to hear your feedback on our new Art At-A-Glance format. Stay tuned: there are more to come!

Visiting Balinese Dancer

I will never forget seeing Balinese dance teacher Ni Ketut Arini in action in her home dance studio in Denpasar in Bali, Indonesia. She was teaching nearly 40 young girls to do Balinese dance with gentle, yet firm hands, and a huge smile. It was like her voice could control this 3D orchestra–the small hands, hips, and eyes moving together in the tight studio. She will be artist in residence with Gamelan Sekar Jaya this spring. Her dance workshop is already fully subscribed but she will be in a performance on April 24 at the School of the Arts.

Incidentally, I’m not sure if you can see it but she is wearing an Obama campaign t-shirt. When I visited Indonesia in the summer of 2008, many people were excited about the prospect of an Obama presidency. Sadly, it appears from this article in The Hill that the warm feelings have worn away a bit since then.

We hope somehow to get word to President Obama about our Bali exhibition so that he may in turn tell Indonesian President Yudhoyono about the exhibition when Obama visits there later this month.

Concern for Indonesia and the Philippines

All of us here are thinking of the victims of the natural disasters in the South Pacific this week.

As we prepare for our Filipino American History Month Celebration on Sunday, these disasters will be top of mind for many of our visitors as well. Many of those who were busy preparing their presentations are now focused on relief efforts.  We will be acknowledging and sharing information about these efforts on Sunday with attendees.

A colleague forwarded this email from the Center for East Asian Studies at UC Berkeley with information about ways to help, which I want to share with our blog readers. It shares information about relief agencies working in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Earthquake in Indonesia

A powerful earthquake struck West Sumatra, Indonesia on September 30,  2009. Hundreds have been reported killed, with the death toll  expected to rise. A number of international agencies and NGOs have  started working on relief efforts. If you are interested in donating to earthquake relief, please see the links below. Updates on conditions can be found on these relief organization websites and  also through regular news sites. For English-language news from  Indonesia, see The Jakarta Post or The Jakarta Globe

Donations:

Donations to support disaster relief in Indonesia can be directed to the following international organizations, all of which have ongoing programs in Indonesia:

Oxfam
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/emergencies/sumatra-earthquake.html

Mercy Corps
http://www.mercycorps.org/rogerburks/blog/16446

Save The Children
http://www.savethechildren.org/newsroom/2009/ind-quake.html

Typhoon in the Philippines

Typhoon Ketsana (or Typhoon Ondoy) slammed into the Philippines on September 26, 2009, killing at least 240 people and affecting more than 1.8 million people. A number of international organizations and NGOs are coordinating support for relief efforts. If you are interested in donating, please see the links below.

Philippine Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org.ph/Site/PNRC/Default.aspx?S=48&SS=972

Catholic Relief Services
http://crs.org/philippines/katrina-of-philippines/

BayanUSA
http://bayanusa.org/

Philippine Jesuit Foundation
http://www.jesuits.ph/articles/help_the_victims_of_typhoon_ondoy
Send checks made out to Philippine Jesuit Foundation, and on the memo line, mark for relief of Typhoon Ondoy Victims. Mail to: Philippine Jesuit Foundation, 236 West 27th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10001.

The Museum of Asian Puppetry

Within the registration department, we sometimes like to joke that we are really the Museum of Asian Puppetry. With boxes and boxes of puppets lining our art storage areas, it certainly seems that way! Altogether, the museum owns close to 500 puppets and related theatrical arts. Almost half of these are Indonesian rod puppets (wayang golek) from The Mimi and John Herbert Collection (a rotating selection from this collection is permanently on view in our Southeast Asia gallery). In addition, the collection includes numerous puppets from China, Thailand, and Burma.

Given this notable collection, we were recently thrilled to be offered a full set of Javanese shadow puppets that have been tucked away in their original traveling trunk since before World War II. Now we normally don’t showcase new gifts until they have completed our lengthy and deliberate acquisitions process (a topic for another post some day), but because it will be a long time before we finish processing this gift and because they are just that cool, I thought a sneak peek might be in order.

This vast layer of shadow puppets is only the second of seven layers tightly packed into this trunk.

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