MASK

The concept for MASK came from dance choreographer and Katha Dance Theatre founder , Rita Mustaphi. Inspired by a Viennese mask she'd been given by a friend, Rita approached the poet/screenwriter David Lawrence Grant about writing poetry for the project. Rita then commissioned the music and choreographed dances to accompany David's poems. The result is a playful yet deeply felt exploration of the metaphorical meanings of masks.

As David writes in the film's prologue:
"Mask is a dance of the Senses and the Spirit – a dive into the heart of what donning a mask can mean: the metaphorical mask we wear when safety requires us to hide our true feelings; the chance to opt out of human connection and go anonymous for a while in the world; the chance to opt all the way in and express solidarity when we must do what we can to protect one another from disease; the chance to step away from our everyday lives for a moment, and be someone else; the chance to step away from this world altogether into ritual space, and dance with the Gods."

Having worked with both David and Rita in the past, I was thrilled when Rita approached me about translating her vision into a short film and was especially inspired by the location she had arranged, Southdale Library in Edina, Minnesota. The 70s modernist library's interior seemed bleak, especially in areas devoid of people, like a liminal space. I was struck by how well that fit MASK.

Liminal space is a place of transition just as masking can be a useful strategy in transitional situations. The library is antiseptic but with an awesome potential of knowledge to acquire. A place on the cusp of transformation. A place to experiment with new identities. A pathway to another place. A familiar and yet foreign place. Uneasy and eery and yet nostalgic, that point between choices, before a decision is made, floating in an in-between space.

The liminal space of an empty library transforms through the piece into a more populated space, affirming the right to mask in full public view.