The Performance Process of the Central Java Provincial Children's Dalang Festival 2025

Abstract

This paper examines the 2025 Central Java Children’s Dalang Festival (Festival Dalang Anak, FDA) through the lens of Richard Schechner’s performance studies. The study aims to analyze in depth the performance process undergone by participants, encompassing the proto-performance, performance, and aftermath phases. A qualitative method with an instrumental case study design was employed to capture the events, actions, and behaviors that emerged throughout the festival. Primary data were obtained through in-depth interviews, participatory observation, and a study of the organizer’s official documents, comprising the festival’s Technical Guidelines (Juknis), the Judging Panel’s Official Records of Decision for Categories A and B, participant data, the performance schedule, and complete video recordings available on YouTube. The findings show that the performance process of child puppeteers constitutes a complex interweaving of informal skill transmission, intensive artistic negotiation under a time constraint tightly regulated by the organizer, and a competitive experience that shapes their identity. Beyond mere competition, the FDA functions as a space of cultural reproduction that revitalizes wayang through mechanisms of selection, standardization, and cross-regional peer networking.