Freeman Fellow Teaches Traditional Indonesian Shadow Puppetry at JES

Over a two-week period this March Eddi Prabandono, 2010 Freeman Fellow of Yokyakarta, Indonesia acquainted the students of Johnson Elementary School with Wayang, the 1000-year-old Indonesian tradition of shadow puppetry. Using chipboard donated by the Burlington Free Press, Eddi demonstrated the puppet-making process and worked with JES 5/6 graders to draw larger than life animals and imaginary characters, with finely detailed cut outs and moving appendages. On his last visit to the classroom, Eddi, sculptor and VSC trustee Susie Cronin, VSC Visiting Artist Angelo Ciotti, School Art Program founder Andrea Pearlman, VSC staff artist Arista Alanis and March resident Clay Warren joined with JES 5/6 graders in an improvised shadow puppetry performance for the 45 kindergarteners. After the show, the performers invited the younger students behind the sheets and showed them how to hold and to move the shadow puppets.