Mask of the Spring Water

First English translation of Kallvattnets Mask, originally published in Swedish in 1983, translated by Rachelle Puryear and Hakar Lovgren. The author Birgit Akesson (1908-2001) was a legendary figure, an innovative modern dancer and choreographer, and a teacher and researcher. This is her personal documentation of traditional African dance in a number of societies in East, West, and Central Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. She travelled extensively in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, and the Republic of Congo. Akesson presents a unique body of material analysed from her special vantage point. Her search for the essence of dance, the source beyond language or expression that was universal for true dance, had its point of departure in dance as an essential part of human existence. She experienced the dance, the masks, the music, and the social interaction as intrinsic elements of a totality. What she was allowed to see then may no longer exist, making her observations a valuable historical record.