Women in the Shadows - 9780896803046

Women in the ShadowsGender, Puppets, and the Power of Tradition in Bali\nAuthor(s): Jennifer Goodlander\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Ohio University Press, United States\nImprint: Ohio University Press\nISBN-13: 9780896803046, 978-0896803046\nSynopsis\nWayang kulit, or shadow puppetry, connects a mythic past to the present through public ritual performance and is one of most important performance traditions in Bali. The dalang, or puppeteer, is revered in Balinese society as a teacher and spiritual leader. Recently, women have begun to study and perform in this traditionally male role, an innovation that has triggered resistance and controversy.\n In Women in the Shadows, Jennifer Goodlander draws on her own experience training as a dalang as well as interviews with early women dalang and leading artists to upend the usual assessments of such gender role shifts. She argues that rather than assuming that women performers are necessarily mounting a challenge to tradition, \""tradition.