DEBUS BANTEN - The Real Thing!!!

My Debus Experience

Last Saturday i went to Anyer in Banten to see a live Debus show with my family.  It was a really cool experience.  I saw how the Debus performers prepared themselves before each trick.  They did this pencak silat kind of movement then they did their magic.  They did lots of different tricks. One of the coolest one was when this guy was cutting himself with a big knife, but didn't get hurt at all.  Another was when another guy had bats coming out of his mouth after a man from the audience hit him with a hammer and metal spike in the stomach.  The Debus performers was called "Debus Macan Liar".

However, I felt very weird during the show, especially when the Debus guys came close to me.  I felt like i could not breathe for a second.  Like my heart stopped for a bit.  It was really cool to watch, but was a bit scary as well.  

Me, my cousin Chica, and my sister Tarra with "Debus Macan Liar"

batik Adidas!!

look at this!! even adidas loves batik!! do you???

Language is a part of cultural heritage too!

Our friends Ata and Omara chose their tribes language as their topic for exhibition.  To learn about their issue and action to make people learn their language, check out their blogs!  Click our  links to see!

Never seen Debus Banten before? Watch this video. Its SO cool!

About our PYP Exhibition

For our exhibition we have learned that Cultural Heritage as the roots of our identity needs to be conserved and promoted in many different ways.  So Jasmine, Nima and Alitia have decided to promote their cultural heritage by making this blog.  To conserve her traditional art, Batik Solo, Jasmine will share information about Batik Solo and ways we can make use of it so that people will appreciate Batik more as a national art instead of just a piece of cloth and be proud to have Batik as our cultural heritage.  Nima and Alitia has a similar goal to raise awareness that Debus (Banten) and Wayang Klitik (Central Java) is dying out because those traditional arts are not receiving enough support from government to carry on.  They were not able throughout their exhibition journey to find a single live performance of either Debus or Wayang Klitik.  When interviewing resources about why there are no performances available to public, they always came up with the same answer.  Not enough funding to do so.  Therefore their mission is to get enough signatures for their petition to send to our governement so they see the importance of keeping our cultural heritage alive.

Wayang Klitik

Hello my name is Alitia.  My group's goal is to promote Indonesia’s Cultural Heritage so people, especially my generation will learn to appreciate it more and our Indonesian traditional culture will not die out.

Now my personal goal is to promote Wayang Klitik. Why do I choose this traditional art? Because it is my cultural heritage.  I am from Baturaden, Central Java and that’s where Wayang Klitik is from. Wayang Klitik is dying out because not many people knows about Wayang Klitik. Do you know what  Wayang Klitik is? I bet not.  Why don't many people know about Wayang Klitik?  Because there is not enough support from the government for Wayang Klitik.  I have not been able to find anywhere here in this city that shows a Wayang Klitik performance. Even in a famous Wayang museum I went to, the person I interviewed said that Wayang Klitik is no longer performed in public.

Wayang Klitik is different and unique than other traditional Wayang because it is made from wood.  Here are the examples of wayang Klitik.

Why is it called Wayang Klitik?

When the Wayang Klitik puppet moves it makes a clicking sound  "klitik klitik klitik"

Help support my goal to conserve Wayang Klitik and SIGN OUR PETITION and follow our twitter account @IndonesiArt