The Second Face Museum of Cultural Masks has begun a long-term project for public education in the world’s traditions of cultural masquerade. We’ve been hard at work to bring you footage of masquerade from all over the globe. This summer, we released Halloween: An American Tradition of Masquerade, our longest documentary to date (27 minutes). We encourage you to watch it to get in the mood for October 31st this year. We also released New Orleans Mardi Gras, USA, a journey into the biggest Carnival celebration in the United States (13 minutes).
In mid-September, we released Corpus Christi in Cusco, Peru, an exploration of Peruvian masked dances that are some of the most colorful and diverse in the world (7 minutes).
And yesterday, we released Nogaku of Japan, a documentary about the ancient Noh theatre and Kyogen comedies still popular in Japan today, complete with interviews of talented Noh mask makers (20 minutes).
Upcoming releases in 2020 include three more short documentaries on Japanese masked traditions: Kagura of Japan, The Toshidon Ceremony of Kagoshima, and Bugaku: An Ancient Japanese Masked Dance. Also in the works are two short documentaries on masked traditions in Panama: The Diablicos Sucios of Corpus Christi and The Masked Dance of the Cucuá People.
In developing our documentaries, the Museum director uses local camera operators and voice artists for the narration whenever possible.
Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get notification of our documentary films as they are released! Mask Museum films are also available on the Videos page of our website.
And remember, everything the Mask Museum does is free to the public, but we rely heavily on your donations to continue our work!
