Alisa and the Broken Nusantara 2025: A Musical Tale of Alice’s Journey in an Imaginary Landscape with Traditional Southeast Asian Music and Digital Shadow Puppetry as Her Vehicles
Plenary Session
21 August 2025
10:15 - 11:00 hrs (GMT + 7)
C 501
Faculty of Music, Silpakorn University

Alisa and the Broken Nusantara is a collaborative creation between Anant Narkkong and A.I., inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), adapted into a musical tale that takes the character Alice on a journey through a fractured Southeast Asian imaginary land. The work incorporates diverse traditional Southeast Asian musical styles, including Thai Pi Phat, Indonesian Gamelan, Filipino bamboo music, and Persian music, integrating these elements to reflect the narrative's shifting scenes.
Additionally, it employs digital shadow puppetry in the traditional Indonesian Wayang Kulit style, a medium that reflects the region’s cultural identity while raising questions about political conflicts, environmental degradation, and societal reconstruction. This journey is not only a musical and performance-based exploration but also a critique of Southeast Asian musical cultures and history, presented in a modern and thought-provoking context.