Rumput with Balinese shadow puppet master Gusti Sudarta at the Smithsonian
2025-09-28 13:30 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Freer Gallery of Art, Jefferson Drive and 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC, 20037, United States
Gusti Sudarta with wayang kulit
Wayang kulit (shadow theater) performed by I Gusti Putu Sudarta, accompanied by live kroncong and gamelan music performed by Rumput and members of Gamelan Raga Kusuma.
Visit the Smithsonian Institute’s Freer Gallery of Art events calendar for FREE (but strongly recommended) tickets and contact information.
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.
Wayang kulit 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.
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.

Peni Candra Rini @ the Hill Center DC with members of Rumput
2025-10-17 19:00 - 21:00 | The Hill Center, 921 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Washington DC, DC, 20003, United States
Peni Candra Rini with wayang projections. Photo by Matt Mehlan.
Hill Center is absolutely thrilled to welcome back Peni Candra Rini. Her 2023 concert remains one of the most electric, sublime, and utterly singular we have ever presented.
Described by the Kronos Quartet as “one of the world’s greatest singers,” the Indonesian composer Peni Candra Rini combines experimental music, dance, and shadow theatre to reimagine the Javanese legends she grew up with. Peni is joined by musicians Shahzad Ismaily and Andy McGraw, along with members of Rumput and Gamelan Raga Kusuma.
Peni Candra Rini is a renowned Javanese singer, composer, and faculty member at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts. The Kronos Quartet has described her as “one of the world’s greatest singers.” She is a master of several traditional forms and is regarded as one of Indonesia’s most daring young composers, one of only a handful of female composers in the majority Muslim nation. She has performed extensively internationally, including several world tours as the featured singer for Robert Wilson’s I La Galigo. She is a recipient of grants from the Asian Cultural Council, is a two-time grantee of the US State Department’s One Beat and Fulbright programs, and in 2022 was named an Aga Khan Foundation laureate of the arts. In 2023 she became the first woman to be commissioned to compose a work for the Mangkunegaran court of Central Java and in 2024 was bestowed the court name Raden Nganten Tumenggung, the highest honor offered by the Raja. In 2024 she completed a suite for string quartet commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and Carnegie Hall. Entitled Segara Gunung, the thirty-minute work concerns the impacts of climate change on the Indonesian archipelago and has been performed by Kronos on major stages throughout the US and Europe. In 2024 she published two albums on the New Amsterdam label, in collaboration with Shahzad Ismaily, Andy McGraw, and members of Deerhoof, featuring her experimental compositions for Javanese and Western ensembles. In 2024 her trio with Shahzad Ismaily and Andy McGraw (and friends) performed at the Edinburgh International Festival, Roulette, and other US venues and will perform in 2025 at the Big Ears Festival and the Monheim Triennale, among other venues.
