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!

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.

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.

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.

Why such a long time until we debut this set? For one, it is a really full trunk. There are seven layers of puppets, with sizes ranging from tiny daggers for the characters to hold, to giant horses for them to ride. The puppets can be packed tightly because they are flat. Each one is crafted of carefully cut leather decorated with paint and gold and supported by a thin handle of polished horn. In addition to the puppets, the trunk contains backdrop screens, noise-makers, and other performance accessories.

Chief Curator Forrest McGill admires an elephant puppet from the set.

Readying this set for the museum collection will involve researching each puppet individually in order to identify the character and the story that they belong to, to determine when and how each puppet was made, and to to ascertain the physical condition of each puppet. Because the trunk contains several hundred puppets, this process will be ongoing for many months and possibly years.

Lots and lots of puppets!

Once this inventory is complete, the registrars and conservators will design a storage strategy for the long-term preservation of the puppets (unfortunately, we will not be able to store them in their trunk forever), and begin planning for any immediate conservation treatments that they may require.

Senior Registrar Sharon Steckline, Head of Conservation Katie Holbrow, and Forrest McGill examine the backdrop and other accessories that accompanied the puppet set.

With all this to be done, it will be some time before this collection makes it to our galleries. But in the meantime, you can still get your puppet fix in a couple of places. Just this week we rotated the Indonesian rod puppets in the Southeast Asia gallery—the new selection focuses on characters from The Mahabharata (The Great Chronicles of the Bharata Dynasty). Our forthcoming fall exhibition Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam and Burma includes examples of both Thai shadow puppets and Burmese marionettes, and will be accompanied by educational puppet activities presented by some very special guests. And if you’re curious about what other puppet acquisitions may be brewing here at the museum, here’s a YouTube hint to enjoy.

Puppets from the collection (left to right): A princess or a court lady, perhaps 1900-1925, Burma, Gift of Dr. Vincent Fausone, Jr., F2009.5 (Emerald Cities); Shadow puppet of the demon king Ravana riding a chariot into battle, approx. 1850-1900, Thailand, Gift from Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's Southeast Asian Art Collection, 2006.27.115.2 (Emerald Cities ); Ghatotkacha (Gatotkaca), son of Bhima, approx. 1960, West Java, From The Mimi and John Herbert Collection, F2000.86.161 (on view in Gallery 11)