by
Obododimma Oha
Those in folklore studies should be familiar with masks and masking cultures. Also, those in cultural semiotics should like that kind of signification whereby humans cover their faces and claim that they have beccome something else and therefore have enormous powers. But it is not only in folklore and culture that this features. Indeed in every situation in which identity has become doubtful or problematic. Now, for instance, that COVID-19 has forced many to wear "protective" masks, the masked dancers have increased in number. The masked dancers are not only those humans who cover their faces, claiming they have become something else, but also many COVID-19 masked dancers who are dancing their lives on the global village square, hoping that their expiry dates would not be reduced by Coronavirus.
So, you know that masked dancing is an interesting cultural thing, the goal of your mask dancing another thing. The covering of your mouth and nose, which must have been uttering shitty things, is well in order. After all, masking is about shielding something from something.
And masked dancers are not just fools that wish to entertain you. Masked dancers are simply those who challenge you with the idea that identity could be unstable. For it to be written as unstable, there is the need for pretence: in that case, the covering gives you the undecidable identity, in which case, this becomes that, absence becomes presence, somebody becomes nobody, the living becomes the dead!
Masked dancers need an arena. The arena is part of the performance, anyway. The arena also makes the unmasked person the masked person: the masked person is only dancing and acting on behalf of. The unmasked masked has to run round the square when pursued and when not. The running adds to the thrill of mask dancing. And being part of it.
Mask dancers, because they are both human and non-human, have to operate as aliens from another galaxy. They have to do the magical to impress and show that they are unusual. Are they not dead people come back to life? Just as all are subjects of Coronavirus, becoming the living dead made to dance with masks?
I like the lies that masked dancers tell: that they are alive when they are dead, that the still talk when their lips should be at rest, that they should be at the cemetery burying a friend or relative, when they should be the ones to be buried. And so on. By the way, when should the dead be allowed to bury the living? it is their right, not so?
When next you see a masked dancer, do not think about viilage squares. Think about the race round the square. Start wondering why somebody is not chasing somebody. Or is somebody already on the chase? Pardon me for not being up-to-date on these things, particularly on modern masking. It is possible that a serious chase is on and I do not know. I must be from another planet or maybe the analogue ones who should be erased finally.
Now, let me quickly put on my own mask and bath to be clean before entering the new world. Before stepping into the future. Where is his sanitzer? This dirty fellow from the past wants to step into the future! Who are the gate-keepers? Please, stop him.
Comments