The Development of the Wayang Panji Nusantara Network Model to Strengthen the Articulation of the Panji Culture in Southeast Asia

Wayang Panji is a puppet based on Panji stories that developed in Southeast Asia. The story of Panji in the art of wayang is found in Malang mask puppet art, Krucil Kediri puppets, Madurese puppeteers’ puppets, Banjar Kalimantan puppets, Thai Siamese puppets, and wayang puppets in Kelantan Malaysia. The development of Panji culture in Indonesia has been partly through the Panji Nusantara Week activity, which is held once a year, and features performances of Panji-themed arts in several cities in Indonesia. The Panji Cultural Week, which has been held for the past few years, has yet to touch all areas of Panji-themed art, both in Indonesia and abroad. Panji wayang art, which is one of the Panji cultural products, is overlooked by practitioners of Panji culture, even though Panji wayang art is spread across several regions in Indonesia and in several Southeast Asian countries. This research sought to develop Panji-themed wayang art in the Southeast Asian region, so that it has parallels with other Panji-themed arts, through the development of the Panji wayang network in the Southeast Asian region. The Panji Nusantara wayang network aims to build cultural communication between actors and observers of Panji wayang art in the Southeast Asia region and serve as a publication media for Panji puppets for the general public. The cultural communication media was formed as a virtual collaborative performance event, while the wayang Panji publication media is in the form of a digital application-based platform that contains a database for the Panji Nusantara puppet, profiles of the Panji wayang artists, and a roster of the performance activities. This research used the Willis design development method combined with ethnographic methods. The research data were collected in East Java and Kelantan Malaysia. Keywords: Development, puppet, panji nusantara, southeast asia