Tibetan Sacred Dance: A Journey Into the Religious and Folk Traditions

Front Cover
Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, 2002 - Body, Mind & Spirit - 192 pages
The first book to explore the significance and symbolism of the sacred and secular ritual dances of Tibetan Buddhism.

• Lavishly illustrated with color and rare historic photographs depicting the dances, costumes, and masks.

• Looks at both sacred (cham) and folk (achi lhamo) forms and their role in the development, practice, and culture of Tibetan Buddhism.

From the time Buddhism entered the mythical land of the snows, Tibetans have expressed their spiritual devotion and celebrated their culture with dance. Only since the diaspora of the Tibetan people have outsiders witnessed these performances, and when they do, no one explains why these dances exist and what they really mean. Ellen Pearlman, who studied with Lobsang Samten, the ritual dance master of the Dalai Lama's Namgyal monastery in India, set out to discover the meaning behind these practices. She found the story of the indigenous shamanistic Bon religion being superseded by Buddhism--a story full of dangerous and illicit liaisons, brilliant visions, secret teachings, betrayals, and unrevealed yogic practices.

Pearlman examines the four lineages that developed sacred cham--the secret ritual dances of Tibet's Buddhist monks--and achi lhamo storytelling folk dance and opera. She describes the mental and physical process of preparing for these dances, the meaning of the iconography of the costumes and masks, the spectrum of accompanying music, and the actual dance steps as recorded in a choreography book dating back to the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1647. Beautiful color photographs from the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts and Pearlman's own images of touring monastic troupes complement the rare historic black-and-white photos from the collections of Sir Charles Bell, chief of the British Mission in Tibet during the life of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.
 

Contents

PROLOGUE
ENTERING THE WORLD OF CHAM
11
VAJRAKILAYA THE DANCE OF THE THREESIDED RITUAL DAGGER
15
CHAM AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF TIBETAN RELIGION
26
SKELETON DANCE
33
DEER DANCE
36
OLD WHITE MAN FROM MONGOLIA
42
MONGOLIAN AND OTHER CHAMS
44
MAJOR OPERAS
118
DROWA SANGMO
123
GYALSA BHELSA
125
KING GESAR OF LING
126
PEMA WOEBAR
131
RECHUNG UPHEB RECHUNGS TRAVELS TO CENTRAL TIBET WITH MILAREPA
135
SUKYINYIMA
136
THE PA TEN PA
139

KALACHAKRA THE WHEEL OF TIME
46
CHAM GAR
52
PREPARATION AND INITIATION
53
THREE MAIN PHASES OF CHAM PERFORMANCE
55
MANDALA AND MANTRA
58
DANCE STEPS AND MUDRAS
61
COSTUMES
67
MASKS
72
CHARACTERS
75
MUSIC
82
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
88
FESTIVALS
95
PURPOSE AND INTERPRETATION
98
ACHI LHAMO Folk Dance and Operatic Traditions
107
EARLY ORIGINS
112
THANGTONG GYALPO
113
DEVELOPMENT OF ACHI LHAMO
117
NANGSA WOEBUM OBUM
140
PHASES OF ACHI LHAMO PERFORMANCE
143
TYPES OF PERFORMERS
148
SINGING
149
MUSIC AND INSTRUMENTS
154
FOLK DANCE STYLES
158
LHAMO GAR
163
OPERA SEASONS
166
EPILOGUE
173
THE TIBETAN INSTITUTE OF PERFORMING ARTS
174
NEW FORMS
178
CHAM TODAY
180
NOTES
183
BIBLIOGRAPHY
185
INDEX
190
Copyright

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About the author (2002)

Ellen Pearlman has been a Buddhist practitioner for over 30 years under Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and has studied with Buddhist teachers in India, Sikhim, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Europe, Latin America, and North America. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.