Otong Rasta and his son, Atik Rasta, give a performance using wooden-rod puppets at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 4, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. They will be accompanied by students studying gamelan, the traditional Indonesian gong-chime orchestra, in the springtime course “Performing Musical Art of Indonesia.”

The puppet-carving demonstration takes place at 10 a.m. Wednesday, May 5, in Olin Arts Center’s Room 243.

The Rastas’ visit is sponsored by the Freeman Foundation. For more information about the performance and demonstration, call 207-786-6135.

Otong Rasta is a leading musician, teacher and performer of “wayang golek,” a form of wooden-rod puppet theater. He specializes in a repertoire of stories that tell of Java’s conversion to Islam.

Atik Rasta is also a puppeteer and is a professional drummer in the traditional Sundanese style. The pair come to Bates as part of an educational tour also including the University of Pittsburgh, Kenyon College and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The Sundanese performing arts are distinguished from Central Javanese and Balinese traditions by a style, sometimes described as “spicier” than the others, that involves a great deal of playfulness and humor.

Typically, wayang golek performances take place at night and last at least six hours. They are given for many different reasons including weddings and various anniversaries, giving thanks to the gods, or asking for a good harvest, good luck or protection from evil. The stories are often taken from the Hindu epics “The Ramayana” and “The Mahabharata.” The puppets are beautifully carved and painted, and adorned with lovely, colorful costumes. Typically around 60 puppets are used during a performance.

In addition to performing and teaching Bates students during their visit, the Rastas will demonstrate puppet theater to local schools including Lewiston’s Pettengill School.

With offices in New York City and Stowe, Vt., the Freeman Foundation was created by AIG Insurance Company co-founder Mansfield Freeman to promote better relationships and understanding between the United States and the countries of East Asia. In December 2001, the foundation gave Bates a four-year, $400,000 grant intended to enhance and energize the study of Asia and Asian culture across the curriculum.

Thanks to the college’s first-ever grant from the Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence Program, an expert in traditional Indonesian forms of music and shadow puppetry is currently in residence at Bates College.

Joko Susilo comes to Bates from New Zealand, where he is a lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of Otago, Dunedin. He is both a “dhalang” — a master in the Indonesian shadow puppet tradition called “wayang” — and a composer of music for the percussion orchestra called gamelan, which is closely connected with the puppetry style.

Bates is unique in Maine and distinguished nationally for its resources in these Indonesian performing arts. The college has its own gamelan instruments and a 4-year-old gamelan performing ensemble, the Gamelan Mawar Mekar (“blossom of inspiration”). It also has the use of an extensive collection of puppets — around 250 — on permanent loan by David Eisler, of Dover, N.H.

The gamelan is the traditional orchestra of Java and Bali that is most familiar to the rest of the world. Its gongs, drums and xylophones are played according to systems of pitch and timing very different from typical Western music. The players in the Bates ensemble include students and faculty, and work under the direction of visiting assistant professors of music Gina Fatone and Rose Pruiksma.

Bates audiences can hear and see the Gamelan Mawar Mekar in concert this spring. On Friday, March 19, the gamelan musicians will accompany a puppet performance by Susilo. The gamelan will also take center stage at Bates’ World Music Weekend, April 2-3, when the group will perform with the Bates Steel Pan Orchestra on Saturday, April 3, and will welcome MIT’s Balinese Gamelan Galak Tika for a concert on Sunday, April 4.

During the past three years Bates has welcomed visiting artists in a variety of Indonesian traditions, Pruiskma says. “In each instance, our ensemble became stronger and brought some outstanding performances to the whole Bates and the larger community.”