Two well-known dalang of the recent generation are Hamzah bin Awang Amat (1940-2001), a prodigious artist and director of the troupe Seri Setia who after success in a festival in Kuala Lumpur in 1969 was invited to tour Europe, the United States, Turkey and various Asian countries. One can compare this to the ritual fight of the two Hanuman (black and white) that opens the Thai-Khmer shadow play.

Performances have a stock opening in which mantra are read, two dewa panah battle, and a hermit appears. The clown characters Pa Dogel and Wak Long are local variations on the god-clown figure found in most wayang genres. The shadow figures are shown in profile and have a movable arm. The Indian epic has become Hikyat Seri Rama (Story of Prince Rama) and depicts the hero’s struggle with Maharaja Wana ( Ravana), with the dialogue in local Kelantanese dialect. One can see Thai influence in the appearance of characters and the music, while texts are Malay versions of the Ramayana. It is believed that wayang kulit kelantan arrived in the state of Kelantan in the north-west from Thailand, which shares a border with Kelantan with related forms found as far away as Cambodia. In Malaysia there are four specific regional genres: wayang kelantan (earlier called wayang siam), wayang gedek, wayang purwa, and wayang melayu. The traditional instruments of the Malay wayang ensemble are an oboe/shawm ( serunai) with seven holes or sometimes in its place a bowed lute ( rebab), three drum types ( gendang, gedombak, and geduk), and a variety of gong chime instruments. The dalang often has two assistants who are in charge of the set up of the apparatus, passing the puppets used during the performance, and contributing to the sound effects, meanwhile the music of the orchestra plays a fundamental role. The silhouettes are finely cut from leather of water buffalo or sometimes goat, painted, and projected on a screen of white cotton ( kelir). As in all forms of wayang kulit, the dalang is the ritual specialist, manipulator, and narrator. The origin is unclear, but researchers find it probable that it developed by at least the 18th century under Javanese and Siamese (Thai) cultural influences forming different cultural traits and following different languages according to points of origin. The major form of puppetry traditionally practised in Malaysia is shadow theatre, the wayang kulit, a term which may come from bayang or “shadow” and kulit or “hide”, “skin”. Malaysia achieved independence from Great Britain in 1957 after almost two centuries of British presence in the region. Located in South East Asia, Malaysia, also known as the Malaysian Federation (Malay: Persekutuan Malaysia), consists of two regions: Peninsula Malaysia, which shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia and East Malaysia (Malaysian Borneo), which shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines.

Asian shadow puppetry