IIllya Sumanto is a Malaysian Wayang Kulit puppeteer, performing arts educator, and founder of Wayang Women, an all-female, multinational shadow puppet troupe. She wrote and directed the entire Wayang Kulit performance featuring Southeast Asian female ghosts, while retaining the traditional elements of the art form. Her feminist rendition caught the attention of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) in 2024, leading Wayang Women to perform in Bangkok before an audience of more than 3,000 feminists from around the world. The troupe has since toured across Southeast Asia and Europe.

In May 2026, more than 6,000 people gathered at Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur’s historicpublic square, to watch her Wayang Kulit performance - marking one of the troupe’s largestpublic audiences to date.

She began teaching shadow puppetry in Berlin in 2016 and is now also a student herself, studying under Pak Dain, the last accredited Kelantanese Malay master puppeteer of Wayang Kulit. She is currently pursuing a PhD researching women’s participation in Kelantanese Wayang Kulit, while teaching performing arts at Panyaden International School, in Chiang Mai.