Awas Mawas: A Community Puppetry Project

Last year, I met a very inspiring sculptor and a great gentleman artist, whom I now call my good friend, William Koong. He was interested in indigenous folklore, especially from the Temuan and Mah Meri people of Malaysia. We sat in a café discussing my knowledge of Temuan folklore that I could remember. He had come all the way from Klang to meet me and was planning a project focused solely on the stories of indigenous people from the past to the present.

So, he was particularly interested in the story of Mawas, a mythical creature featured in many Malaysian folklores. As the name suggests, many communities have their own version of Mawas in their stories, which made it very intriguing to explore, according to William. Let me explain the meaning of Mawas: it is a creature that has no gender, whether man or woman, and possesses quite mystical powers beyond human understanding. That's the starting point. Another feature of Mawas is that it lives in the forests of Malaysia. Many Orang Asli hold a deep respect for Mawas and prefer not to mention its name when entering the forest, as doing so is believed to lead to a bad jungle trip.

After all the research he had done, the name Awas Mawas is a play on the Malay word "Awas," which means caution. So it is like “caution! Awas is here!”. He came up with the proposal for the national grant to run a puppetry arts project focusing on the indigenous folklore, past and present. So he, with the collective of artists, puppeteers, and theatre director, went to stay in the indigenous village in order to run the puppetry workshop with the community.

The final part of project was organised the puppets parade in the community as well as in the Kuala Lumpur city during the "Harmonny Walk". So the puppets parade start at the Kampung Orang Asli Pulau Bumbun, Selangor first and then the second parade was held at village Kampung Orang Asli Pulau Kempas. The puppets parade was ended with performance by the children who participate in the making of the puppets itself. It was very memmoriable event for the both of the indigenous communities who been invloved in this project. The parformance was based losely on the indigenous folklore but using the contemporary issues as the storyline. The joy i can see on the faces of the community was so beautiful and precious. Its not just the performance but many of these indigenous folklore never been turn into 3D puppets before as many of community in Malaysia practice oral story telling rather than written ones. It wasn't just for entertainment but it is social critical performances and it empowering the indigenous community through active participatory performance arts.