Mask

This Lele mask is closely related to the Kuba mask depicted in Brendan Fernandes’s video As One shown here. The masks chosen for the ballet duet Fernandes composed for As One are known to have been danced in their own distinctive way. The female mask covered with geometric patterns in the video is from the court of the Kuba kingdom, and was originally worn as the face of a female court historian who danced in a carefully choreographed narrative. The Lele make masks that have much in common, both visually and functionally, with those of their neighbors in the central Kuba kingdom, but are much rarer.

The Lele sculptor of this mask employed an imaginative and skillful use of pigment to underline volume contrasts such as the convex, almond-shaped eyes—accentuated by multiple eyebrows arranged one atop another—and the pronounced relief of the nose, ears, and scarification marks. Such masks appear principally at the funerals of chiefs and elders but are also used in annual performances that celebrate and teach the history of Lele origins and migrations.