The masked dancing is one of Indonesian way to tell story to audience about their ancestor and God . Each mask represent different emotion , character and feeling . Some say , the mask is another way of the unnatural being communicated to human . Speaking to the mystic story in Indonesia , the mask crafter say sometimes he feel that he being posses by some spirit during making the mask and when the mask was done , the dancer can feel and know the spirit story . They even confiscated some mask that bring harm to the dancer especially when the spirit take the dancer body.
" The MASK is alive " ,That what we being told by them , so they ask us (group of photographer) do not making any unwanted action to the mask and respect them while doing the photoshoot.
The photoshoot was being held in one of popular mask workshop in Jogjakarta . The mask crafter is one of mask master that have create thousand of mask. Instead of being afraid and being disturb by unwanted mask spirit , he welcome us with open arm . He say, this dance is start being forget by the people especially the gen-z , this is one way to promote the mask dancing to all over the world.
Here is series of photo that i have take during our photography season in this workshop.
Check this out -The mask dance in YOUTUBE . Credit to the youtube owner for the video
Since the dance is being introduce by their ancestor , they using the traditional instrument to performed the dance and usually they ll do some ritual to respect the spirit during the performance that being held by the priest .
I hope you enjoy this series. Personally , i continue feel the present of the spirit during this visit . I dont know if it is real or not but since they allowed the spirit during the dance , i guess the spirit is really exist there.
This all for today , see you in next post .