Fair Trade Cultural Wood Dance Mask from Bali, "Legong Keraton Dancer"

Covered with frangipani blossoms, an elaborate headdress crowns a young dancer. Nyoman Indrawati Subrata of the Subrata Family sculpts this extraordinary mask from crocodile wood, following in the footsteps of her father, the late master artisan Nyoman Subrata. The Legong Keraton is probably one of Bali's most important dances. It tells of the King of Lasem, who finds the beautiful Rangkesari lost in the woods and locks her in a house of stone. Her outraged brother learns of this and demands she be freed under threat of war. But Lasem refuses and goes to war – ignoring Rangkesari's pleas for peace. On his way to the battlefield, Lasem encounters a bird of ill omen who foretells his death. The dance dramatizes the farewells before Lasem departs to the battlefield, where he is killed.