About

Rumput performs innovative stringband music and shadow theater. We often collaborate with our teachers in Indonesia, from whom we have studied kroncong (Indonesian stringband music) and wayang kulit (shadow theater). We are based in Richmond, Virginia.

Our performances have won awards at the Cliff Top Old Time Festival in West Virginia and the Richmond International Film Festival. We have performed at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, and at many universities and music and theater venues along the American east coast.

We have performed internationally, including tours and residencies in Java in 2017 and 2018, performing with local artists at each stop, and collaborating with guest artistic director Danis Sugiyanto.

In Spring 2016 we co-produced Shadow Ballads, an intensively collaborative performance involving old-time music duo Anna & Elizabeth, Balinese wayang (shadow-puppet) master Gusti Sudarta, and Javanese musicians Peni Candrarini and Danis Sugiyanto.

In 2018 we again collaborated with Danis on Akar, an original crankie and accompanying suite of music retelling the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, premiered on tour in Java.

In 2019 we collaborated with Danis and singer Endah Laras on a mini-tour of mid-Atlantic venues including stops at The Smithsonian Institution and The Richmond Folk Festival.

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