Etnografiska museet - Exhibitions » Temporary exhibitions

In Africa, dance masks connect people with non-visible worlds, with formative energy with ancestors, powers of healing, justice. The dance masks transform people, saying: You are more than yourself. The forefathers are present as an Ancestor Mask enters the dance ground. When you wear the antelope mask, it is not you that dance, but the antelope energy thus aroused.

Birgit Åkesson (1908–2001) was one of the leading dancers and choreographers of the 20th century. In 1967–75 she travelled in Africa seeking the roots and essence of dance. In 1983 she published a celebrated book on dance in Africa, The Mask of Spring Water.

Her collection of African dance masks were donated to the Museum of Ethnography in 2001. This exhibition introduces these masks.

A companion book (in Swedish) presents
the masks in more detail and explores Birgit
Åkesson’s understanding of dance in Africa.