GRK @ the Smithsonian with Gusti Sudarta and Peni Candra Rini 9/28/25 FREE!

Join members of GRK and Rumput, performing alongside master artists Gusti Sudarta and Peni Candra Rini. Free, family friendly performance!

Performed by I Gusti Putu Sudarta, accompanied by live gamelan and kroncong music performed by members of Gamelan Raga Kusuma.

This is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a master of the Wayang Kulit shadow puppet genre perform live! Wayang (“shadow”) Kulit (“skin”) are flat leather puppets made from carved and painted rawhide. The Javanese and Balinese shadow play tradition is at least 1000 years old. It is both a sacred genre and a mass entertainment for local communities. Besides philosophical and religious instruction, performances include a healthy dose of bawdy humor and manic fight scenes.

Sudarta will perform Sutasoma. In this shadow play, the only child of a royal family rejects the throne and escapes to the forest for a life of Buddhist contemplation. But first he must conquer various ogres in the forest, including an elephant-headed beast and a giant snake.

The performance lasts approximately 75 minutes. Afterwards, you can meet Sudarta and learn about his puppets.

I Gusti Putu Sudarta is Faculty and Director of the Theatre Program at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. Sudarta was born into a family of artists in the village of Bedulu, Bali, in 1968. From a young age, he studied traditional Balinese gamelan music with teachers in his village. He is a prolific musician, dancer, composer, and shadow master, actively performing at Balinese temple ceremonies, in academic contexts, at national cultural festivals, and on international stages. He has taught frequently as a visiting artist in American and Taiwanese universities.