Master Shadow Theatre and Director of Shadowlight.org (based in California, U.S.) gave Performing Arts students of ASWARA, (National Performing Arts Institution, Malaysia), a thoroughly engaging overview of the evolution of his contemporary Shadow Theatre. Larry Reed is acknowledged as one of the renowned international shadow theatre masters who are able to bridge the urban-rural gap of wayang as a universally engaging art form.
Larry has worked with both mythic and contemporary subjects, projecting shadows on large screens and using shadows effectively as cinematic images. In his lecture Larry described his apprentice days with a Balinese Dalang, training and submitting himself totally to traditional training of his chosen art form before moving on to develop his own ‘Wayang Listrik’ which has become a familiar genre with contemporary dalangs in Bali. Larry has worked with indigenous groups of Taiwan, Japan U.S and of course, Indonesia. He is here in Malaysia as guest of Sutra Foundation to research on the feasibility of working on the subject matter of the Orang Asli of Malaysia.