Heroic Figures’ Characters in Wayang Wong Dance Drama: A Character Education for the Elementary School Students?

Wayang Wong is one Javanese traditional dance drama combining drama arts and wayang performance. The stories in Wayang wong performances are taken from Mahabarata and Ramayana. Many stories presented through wayang wong performances give various life examples through each figure’s characters. Of those contained in wayang wong performances, this article only selected the figures from Mahabarata story as not only well known by the society like Gatotkaca, Arjuna, Bima/Werkudara, or Kresna, but also many Mahabarata story figures have good characters appropriate to become the examples for the character education at schools. Love, forgiveness, patience. responsibility, helpfulness, and other good characters belong to the Mahabarata story protagonist figures. This descriptive qualitative research used a cultural approach by identifying wayang wong figures’ characters in both Ramayana and Mahabharata stories. The research data were collected using literature reviews on various relevant references to wayang wong to dig and obtain the descriptions of the wayang wong figures’ characters in both Mahabharata and Ramayana stories as the character education for elementary school students. This article is greatly interesting because by introducing the protagonist figures through wayang wong performances, the children from Javanese ethnicity are expected to have good characters sourced from the local cultures. This is important because by knowing wayang figures, children are taught to love and conserve their nation’s cultures.

Students? (Farida Nuryantiningsih, Sri Nani Hari Yanti) 70 18 th century (Supendi, 2007). Wayang wong is one traditional palace theatre developed by the Mataram kingdom (now Surakarta and Yogyakarta area). In wayang wong performance, there is a combination of literary art (role/theatre), musical art, painting art, and semiotics (Wardani & Widiyastuti, 2013). Wayang wong performance can be used as information, education, entertainment, and other media to understand the philosophical values of Javanese culture that wayang wong has the power as a show and guidance. Wayang wong is the personification form of wayang purwa since the story structure, character selection, and language used in wayang wong are similar to those in wayang purwa. In wayang wong, the actors or actresses use dance and song as the dialog between figures. Thus, actors and actresses in wayang wong performance should be able to dance and sing. Rustopo (2007) mentioned that the history of wayang wong in Surakarta started from the Keraton of Kadipaten Mangkunegara, which was at that time, under the government of Prince Adipati Mangkunegara I (1757-1796). Wayang wong was born when the Javanese literature experienced the renaissance period in the XVIII-XIX century marked by the kakawin (Ancient Java) writing in the new Javanese literary language. Meanwhile, Supadma (2015) mentioned that wayang wong first appeared in Ngayogyakarta Palace at the time of Hamengku Buwono I in 1757 which was then developed by the next Sultans. Wayang wong was initially performed for the important state ritual ceremony only. However, since 1918, the founder of Kridha Beksa Wirama (KBW), G. P. H Tejakusuma and P Soerjodiningrat, who was the son of Sultan Hamengku Buwana VII, successfully brought the dance out of the palace and was positively welcomed by the society with the Sultan's permission. Since then, wayang wong successfully passed through the palace and got positive responses from the common people level.
As one adiluhung artwork, wayang wong has an important role in the Javanese culture as the Javanese identity. Wayang wong art performance has two styles (in Javanese known as gagrak) consisting of gagrak Surakarta and gagrak Yogyakarta showing the wealth of Javanese people's culture although that two gagrak were born as the result of the colonial's political strategy of divide et impera to divide and conquer the sole entity of Mataram Sultanate. Each gagrak has its history, development story, and dynamics starting from behind the palace walls until its development outside the palace.
In Yogyakarta, wayang wong was first created by Sultan Hamengkubuwono I with the Gandawerdaya play, while in Surakarta, Mangkunegara I had the Wijanarka play. The Gandawerdaya play contains the patriotism spirit taken from the epic of Mahabharata particularly expressing the patriotism of the brave Pandawa knights in defending the truth and fighting against the crafty Kurawa (Bimo, 2014). The patriotism spirit in wayang wong was presented by Sultan Hamengkubuwono I remembering the time when the Sultan was facing the Dutch forces. Wayang wong in Yogyakarta Sultanate is a very modest group dance as not focusing on the sparkling costumes and other instruments, but creating a strong spirit and appreciation of the figures' characters. Thus, Yogyakarta's classical dancing style including wayang wong shows a more classical characteristic than Surakarta's which has a more romantic sense. By maintaining its classical characteristics, Yogyakarta's dancing style is known as joged mataram. Meanwhile, Surakarta's dancing style is known as yasa enggal or creating the new one. Besides costumes, the difference between Yogyakarta's and Surakarta's dancing style is related to their dialog intonations. The dialog intonations in Surakartan wayang wong are more realistic following the emotional levels and happening situations with various intonations, while those in Yogyakarta are more monotonous.
Although there is a style or gagrak difference in Yogyakartan and Surakartan wayang wong, the stories or plays presented from those two palaces are similarly based on the epic of introducing the wayang wong dance drama with its figures to the children is greatly important to introduce the local culture to the elementary school students and develop the character education values through the figures found in wayang wong. This is also considered as one effort to minimize the children's preference for the foreign superhero figures, such as Superman, Spiderman, Batman, and others seen on their televisions and Youtube channels.
The problems arising in the society, such as corruption, violence, mass fights, consumptive economic life, youth moral disorientation, and other problems have become hot topics in various mass media and seminars. One alternative solution to overcome or at least to lessen the cultural problems and the nation's characters is education. Education is considered as one preventive alternative to building a better nation's new generations. As the preventive alternative, education is expected to develop the quality of the young generation in various aspects to reduce and lessen the causes of various cultural problems and nation's characteristics. Education cannot be separated from the students' environments, especially the cultural environments because the students cannot live inseparably from their environments and behave based on their cultural principles. The education which is not based on cultural values will result in students whose culture is forcibly removed from its roots. Consequently, the younger generations will no longer recognize their cultures and become strangers in their cultural environments. Besides, the more worrying aspect is that if younger generations no longer love their own cultures, it will become a threat to the community's cultural sustainability as one of the nation's wealth. If the younger generations have become strangers to their own cultures, they will be very susceptible to the influence of outside cultures or even tend to accept them without having any valuing process. This happens as younger generations do not have norms and national culture values possibly used as the basis to do any valuing process. Therefore, character education rooted in cultures is greatly important to teach those young generations can recognize and then preserve their own cultures to further become their strong self-identity (Kemendiknas [Ministry of National Education], 2010).

Puppetry and Wayang Wong
Wayang is one most well-known Indonesian culture art among many other artworks. In wayang, there are acting, dancing, singing, musical, speech, literary, painting, sculptural, and symbolic arts. Wayang is media to enlighten da'wah, education, entertainment, philosophical understanding, and entertainment. Wayang is one typical art performance from Indonesia which always tells the values, norms, cultures, and traditions growing and developing in the local communities' life. Wayang contains the local wisdom which beneficially builds the characters depicted from the wayang figures' characters (Fadjrie, 2013). Good characters in the society which are taken from the local wisdom should be strongly built and deeply internalized in daily behaviors.
Local wisdom values are not outdated values, but the everlasting ones to synergize with the universal and modern values. Wayang is an epic that mainly tells about the heroism of its good figures' characters in facing and destroying the bad ones. Wayang which has passed many historical events from generation to generation has shown how its puppetry culture is strongly attached and becomes a part of Indonesia's life, especially in Java. This puppetry's long period of age shows how high is its values and meanings to the communities' life. This condition shows that puppetry stories can well develop based on the recent development era although there is a certain stereotyping element and shows its antiquity. However, the wayang stories were mostly passed down through the performance media, especially wayang kulit performances more than texts. The Wayang stories were first orally told from generation to generation and each teller created their ways to tell those stories. Wayang stories were told or communicated to society through performances, cassette tape records, or books. Wayang kulit performances, especially played by the famous puppeteers, were always full of audiences. Wayang lovers have never been bored watching wayang kulit performances although the stories and the puppeteers are the same, meaning that both have never been watched before. In each performance, there is always something new that is contextually different from the previous ones.
A wayang story is arranged based on a never-changing dramatic convention. Small changes happen only as variants, while the big ones beyond the sources have never happened (Amir in Nurgiyantoro, 1998:38). In terms of its benefits, wayang is a symbol or reflection of our daily life.
Thus, watching a wayang performance is not different from watching ourselves in a mirror (Mulyono, 1989:15). Wayang wong is one wayang type in Indonesia. Wayang wong is a dance drama performed by human actors substituting the wayang puppets. Wayang wong is a dance genre categorized as a total theater that includes dancing, acting, literary, musical, fine, and sound arts (Supriyanto, 2013). In its performance, wayang wong does not only present an entertaining performance but also provides guidance containing moral values to be interpreted and practiced in our daily life. Wayang wong performance is a traditional art teaching concrete lessons and values through the concrete figures' characters as paragons. Wayang wong is considered a "living encyclopedia" by the Javanese people due to its completeness related to the lessons and values on the relationship between humans, nature, and God and how humans can reach their life perfection.
In wayang wong, performance, an actor acting one wayang figure should perfectly be able to show the figure's true characters. Empathy is greatly necessary to support the actor to well act the figure's characters and to well understand others. Empathy is considered as one effective way to recognize, understand, and evaluate others that someone can truly and deeply feel others' characters including the ways other people observe and face their problems and situations Jurnal Ilmiah Lingua Idea Vol. 12, No. 1, June, pp.69-83 Website: http://jos.unsoed.ac.id/index.php/jli/ (Pamungkas, 2012). Wayang performance can be used as one learning media for children by implanting the esthetically-wrapped ethical values that wayang performance can be easily accepted by young generations, especially children.

MATERIALS AND METHOD
This descriptive qualitative research used a cultural approach by identifying wayang wong The collected data were then processed through data reduction, data display, and data conclusion. First, the data irrelevant to the problems were reduced that only the supporting data were used. Second, the selected data were then displayed to more clearly explain the collected data. Third, the data were further classified based on predetermined categories. Fourth, data were then concluded through depiction and verification.

RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Character education which is based on the local culture has become one innovation in learning processes by providing more places for children to participate in transferring and conserving the local wisdom as a part of life values implanted in the society. The implementation of character education which is based on local cultures, such as the introduction of superhero figures' characters in wayang wong performances as one learning strategy, is expected to increase their recognition and sense of ownership on the local cultural heritage. The recognition and sense of ownership of the local culture heritage are greatly required as motivations and spirits in conserving the local cultures and maintaining the values of the existing local wisdom. These values will then become the spirits sustainably supporting the inheritance efforts of rasa (taste), cipta (idea/creativity), karsa (intention), and karya (work/creation) (Hapsari, 2019).
In each wayang performance, either wayang kulit or wayang wong, there is always colored with wayang figures with various characters: some with bad characters, while some others with Kalapracona. Since then, Tutuka's name was changed into Gatotkaca (elib.unikom.ac.id).
In the puppetry world, Gatotkaca was told to have amazing power. In Kurukshetra great war, he killed many of Kurawa's allies before finally died in Karna's hands. In Indonesia, Gatotkaca becomes a very popular wayang figure. His power was told greatly amazing, such as flying without wings, and well known with the title of "otot kawat tulang besi/having wire muscles and iron bone". Gatotkaca was told to have brave, determined, tough, clever, fast, agile, steadfast, and greatly responsible characters. He was greatly powerful and had the Narantaka sacred utterances given by Hermit Seta. Gatotkaca was also known as Arimbiatmaja, Bimasiwi, Guritna, Gurudaya, Kacanegara (loving his own kingdom), Purbaya, Kancing Jaya (key of victory). In the puppetry world, Kresna was told to have the peace-loving characteristics shown when Baratayuda war was going to happen. Kresna requested the dispute peacefully settled by dividing the kingdom; defender of justice, virtuous as proven through Kresna's loyalty to his words given to Drupadi saying that all Kurawa members who had humiliated by stripping Drupadi's clothes would die on the battlefield. Kresna swore in front of Drupadi that Kresna was born in this world to protect truth and uphold the Dharma laws to exterminate the evilness appearing throughout the centuries. However, Kresna also had some weaknesses in abducting Rukmini who should have been married to King Cedi.

Rama
In Ramayana epic, Rama was the main figure Rama had some children named Kusiya and Rama Batlawa.
According to Hindu belief, Rama was the reincarnation of the seventh God, Wisnu who descended on earth. Rama was seen as Maryada Purushottama, meaning the "Perfect Human". In his childhood and adolescence, he was educated with virtues and powers by Bhagavan Waistha.
Because of his intelligence, powers, and virtuous attitudes, Sri Rama was endowed with the incarnation of Sang Hyang Wisnu who had to destroy the evilness on earth. Rama Wijaya was a great knight at wars. He had gentle attitudes and greatly talented in using weapons, especially arrows. He was highly diligent in practicing archery that no knights were able to match him. No matter how big the arc was, he was always able to bend it, and no matter how far the target was, he could always hit it right on target.

CONCLUSION
Local wisdom, especially wayang, is the energy collectively belonging to the Javanese people to become a more civilized society. The local wisdom taught and passed down to younger generations can be used as the character education to prevent various problems in the middle of modernization. By inheriting the local culture and practicing the local wisdom values, the youth is expected to be able to politely answer the future challenges based on their own cultures. Besides, the local wisdom values possibly become the bridge between the local cultures and global currents.