Shadow Puppet of Bima

The history of humanity - as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London - is in South East Asia. This week Neil MacGregor, the museum's director, is with the objects from across the world around 400 years ago that explore the relationships between religion and society. Today he is with a shadow puppet from the Indonesian island of Java, asking how a puppet watched by a predominantly Muslim audience is a character from a Hindi epic. He describes the history of the theatre of shadows and explores how it reveals the religious traditions that have shaped Indonesian life. He talks to a puppet master from Java. And the Malaysian novelist Tash Aw discusses the influence of shadow theatre on the region today. Producer: Anthony Denselow

You can listen to Shadow Puppet of Bima online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Shadow Puppet of Bima is an episode from A History of the World in 100 Objects by BBC.

This episode is 14:03 long.

This episode was published on Sep 29, 2010.

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