ADAPTING TRADITIONS: REVIEWING THEORIES OF ADAPTATION IN MALAYSIAN PERFORMING ARTS

Abstract

Traditional performing arts in Malaysia, including Wayang Kulit and Chinese Hokkien Potehi, face declining audiences, weakened intergenerational transmission, cultural erosion, and shifting sociopolitical and technological contexts. Treating these traditions only as heritage objects to be preserved can obscure the transformations through which they have remained viable. Drawing on Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation, this paper conceptualises adaptation as creative reinterpretation, recontextualisation, and ‘repetition without replication’ rather than fidelity to an original form. Using Malaysian Wayang Kulit traditions and Hokkien Potehi puppetry as comparative cases, and integrating literature with symposium observations on shadow puppetry and ethnographic Potehi fieldwork in Penang and Johor, Malaysia, the analysis identifies localisation, multilingualism, intercultural exchange, technological mediation, and shifts in audience and performance settings as adaptive processes. The paper argues that these practices represent different degrees of adaptive change, but both demonstrate that continuity in living heritage depends on negotiated transformation rather than cultural stasis.