Based in Yogyakarta, this group was founded by Dewanto Sukistono (1969) who comes from a dhalang (puppeteers), himself a son of Ki Widiprayitna, a prominent dhalang famous for popularising Menak wayang golek in Yogyakarta surrounding during the 1950s.

Took a formal education in pedalangan (puppetry) from high school to master degree, both in Yogyakarta and Surakarta (the arts institute), he had been active performing for festivals and other occasions. After finishing his undergraduate studies in 1996, he ventured to be an independent artist before admitted to teach at the Puppetry Programme Studies at the Yogyakarta Arts Institute (ISI) in 1998. He then continued to take a postgraduate in puppetry with his puppetry performance titled PANAKAWAN.

As a lecturer, Dewanto is engaged in academic activities such as research, seminar as well as writes for various cultural journals and newspapers. Now he focuses more on exploring the puppetry both the traditional forms (wayang golek) as well as modern forms.

Puppetry tradition (non shadow puppets) has been known in the Indonesian’s tradition in the form of wayang golek. Even this wayang golek has developed into a range of varieties, identified through the storylines, such as the Purwa genre which always tells stories around epics such as Mahabarata and Ramayana, the Menak one which carries out Islamic stories, the Wacana Winardi which evoloves its stories from the Old Testament, and the Panji which tells about the legendary prince with the same name.

Boneka Panakawan is inspired by traditional puppetry performance of wayang golek as well as the modern ones, especially Japanese Bunraku and Otome Bunraku and French Gilgamesh. The basic of this creation is an attempt to create a real human image whilst the construction itself actually contains its ability to present something surreal. It is placed between this contrast.

The artistic concept emphasise the body or muscle language, not only visual one. Hence, the boundary between puppets and audience is blurred. In this work, audience is expected not to be burdened or disrupted by the living performers, although it is impossible to “hide” them behind the shape of the puppets, The presence of these performers could take a double roles. They exist both as purely performing whilst at the same time it enables them to communicate with the puppets themselves. The puppets are able to be “more” than humans, and it even becomes a performing space itself so it can perform in both formal stages as well as other sites flexibly. The shapes are varied, depending on the stage design, lighting, music and the performance structure itself.