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As new possibilities open up to women in India's changing economy, women puppeteers are transforming the face of both traditional and contemporary forms of Indian puppetry. An investigation into the work of several prominent women puppeteers, from rural and urban settings, shows the range of challenges these women artists face as well as the important contributions they are making to grow and sustain India's puppetry arts. Claudia Orenstein is an associate professor of theatre at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance. Her other publications include The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation, Festive Revolutions: The Politics of Popular Theatre and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and many articles on puppetry and Asian theatre., Indian puppetry, long a formidable art playing a central role in religious rituals and village life, is caught up today in India's seismic economic and cultural shifts. Many traditional forms [...]

This article charts the increasing involvement of women performers in Balinese topeng (mask dance) and emerged from discussions and emails among the authors. Following an overview explaining women's traditional absence from this form and noting the pioneering women who have been at the forefront of change, the authors discuss how, as non-Balinese female performers and researchers, they discovered that they shared many similar stories, curiosities, and challenges relating to their training and experiences. Their insights provide a detailed picture of some important issues for women in Asian theatre. MARGARET COLDIRON is a London-based theatre director, performer, teacher, and specialist in masks. She performs Balinese music and dance with Gamelan Lila Cita and Lila Bhawa Indonesian Dance Company and is the associate director of Thiasos, a theatre company specializing in intercultural productions of ancient Greek plays. Her publications include Trance and Transformation of the Masked Actor in Japanese Noh and Balinese Dance Drama (2004) and articles and reviews in Asian Theatre Journal, New Theatre Quarterly, Indonesia and the Malay World, and Women and Performance. She is currently the deputy head of the BA in World Performance Program at East 15 Acting School, University of Essex. Born in Sicily, trained in Bali, and currently based in Tasmania (Australia), Carmencita Palermo is a researcher, writer, and performer who focuses on Indonesian masked dance performance and mask embodiment cross-culturally. Her performance and teaching practices explore the dynamics of interaction between body, masks, music, audience, and environment in different cultural contexts, with particular attention to the roles and perspectives of women. She has performed and taught in Australia, Indonesia, Europe, and Brazil. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Naples. TIFFANY STRAWSON is a performing artist, researcher, and dramaturg who makes performances in site- and culture-specific contexts. She is undertaking doctoral research on the embodiment of Balinese topeng mask in a posttraditional, women-centered, and intercultural context--exploring notions of presence, translation, and the relationship between movement and ritual. In 2007 she initiated the Bali Unmasked project, which promotes intercultural exchange by supporting Balinese performers to teach and perform in the United Kingdom. She also mentors UK students' studies in Bali. Her academic publications include contributions to theatre, dance, performance, and training., At the Women in Asian Theatre conference held at the University of Lincoln in September 2013, a panel focused on women performers of the Balinese masked dance-drama topeng (the word [...]

Traditional norms and values stood in the way of radical experimentation with the form of wayang until Indonesia's postcolonial era. The same impediments did not exist for colonial European artists. Edward Gordon Craig formulated his theories of the über-marionette with reference to wayang, while Richard Teschner adapted wayang puppets for his unique Viennese puppet theatre. This initial encounter of Europe with wayang articulated a pattern of colonial exploitation: Asian products were alienated from their producers and transported to Europe stripped of direct connections to the people and conditions from which they arose. The 1960s ushered in a new era of intercultural communication. A major influx of Indonesian puppetry came to the United States when a generation of budding American puppet artists received direct tuition from Indonesian puppet masters at California summer schools in the early 1970s. Many subsequently went to Java and Bali themselves for lengthy periods of wayang study and apprenticeship. Some of these artists crossed traditional Indonesian puppets forms with other modes of practice to create complex hybrids. Much of the most interesting contemporary wayang work today is taking place along transnational axes. Wayang has been embraced by international artists and companies in order to tell idiosyncratic myths and celebrate the sacred and the ethereal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]