On the 29^th May to the 1^st June, there was a Wayang Kancil project that ran for 4 days at St Mary-in-the-Castle. Wayang is the Indonesian form of puppetry, and Wayang Kancil is a type of shadow puppetry made for children and Sarah Bilby and Niall Stuchfield led the project. The project aimed to teach young children the basics of Gamelan music and wayang. The activities on offer included Gamelan playing, Puppetry making/performing and dance. The children were working towards a concert at the end of the project, so there was a deadline to get everything done by.

Niall Stuchfield showed us his puppets and explained the reasons for how they were designed. Shadow puppets have little holes and dashes on them to give them detail when they are viewed on the other side of the screen, they are also very brightly coloured, because in a traditional shadow puppet performance you can sit bot sides of the screen. Afterwards he showed how to make our own puppets using card and plastic rods. The traditional materials are buffalo skin and horns, but we stuck with cardboard due to the fact that there aren't many buffalo in Hastings.

Gill Roberts showed us some short dance scenes. These were about a warrior prince, who is showing of his strength and grace during a battle. We also created our own Wayang Kancil scenes, using the puppets we had made. Both of these were accompanied by the many new Gamelan pieces we had learnt.

The evening started with the whole group playing the gamelan. Some of the people who took part performed their dance scenes, which were choreographed by Gill Roberts who then went on to perform Bapang, a traditional dance from Indonesia. The dance was amazing and Gill is the only person in Britain who can perform it. We then performed our Wayang Kancil scenes, which were accompanied by the Gamelan.

I think that the project and concert were very successful, and everyone who took part performed extremely well.

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