Cham dance

The Black-Hat Drum Cham (Wylie: zhwa nag rnga 'cham, THL: zhanak ngacham),^[1] performed at the Honolulu Museum of Art.

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Cham dance at Leh Palace during the Dosmoche festival, 13 February 2018.

The cham dance (Tibetan: འཆམ་, Wylie: 'cham)^[2][3] is a lively masked and costumed dance associated with some sects of Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhist festivals. The dance is accompanied by music played by monks using traditional Tibetan musical instruments. The dances often offer moral instruction relating to karuṇā (compassion) for sentient beings and are held to bring merit to all who perceive them.^[1][4]

Chams are considered a form of meditation and an offering to the gods.^[5] The leader of the cham is typically a musician, keeping time using some percussion instrument like cymbals, the one exception being Dramyin Cham, where time is kept using dramyin.

The term "devil dance" was an early 20th century Western description of the performance; its name was derived from the costumes worn by performers.^[5]

Content[]

Two dancers during a cham dance at a temple in Beijing, 1 March 1919.

Chams often depict incidents from the life of Padmasambhava, the 9th century Nyingmapa teacher, and other saints.^[6]

The great debate of the Council of Lhasa between the two principal debators or dialecticians, Moheyan and Kamalaśīla is narrated and depicted in a specific cham dance once held annually at Kumbum Monastery in Qinghai.^[7] One iteration of this dance is performed on the eve of Losar, the Tibetan new year, to commemorate the assassination of the cruel Tibetan king, Langdarma in 841 CE. It is a dance symbolising the victory of good over evil.^[8]

The Black Hat dance is a Vajrakilaya dance and is the dance most frequently depicted in paintings.^[9]

Localities[]

Bhutan[]

Dzongkhag dancers during a Tshechu in Jakar, Bhutan, 14 October 2013.

In Bhutan, the dances are performed during the annual religious festivals or tshechu, held in the dzong in each district. The Cham is performed by monks, sometimes nuns, and villagers. The Royal Academy of Performing Arts is the main body which promotes the preservation of the culture of Cham and the dances.

India[]

Dances are performed in Lahaul and Spiti district, Sikkim, Dharamshala and Ladakh during cultural and religious festivals.

Mongolia[]

Tsam (Mongolian: Цам) dance was not introduced to Mongolia until the early 19th century, however it rapidly gained popularity and visibility with celebrations such as the Tsam festival.^[10][11] Tsam came to incorporate both tantric and older, shamanistic elements of dance It became a significant part of Buddhism in Mongolia before being banned under communist rule in 1924. The Stalinist purges in Mongolia destroyed over 700 monasteries, killed tens of thousands of Mongolian monks and lamas, and forcibly laicized thousands more monks. The mass murder of so much of Mongolia's monastic culture seriously threatened the preservation of tsam dance with extinction, as there were few practitioners who had survived the purges. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and introduction of a new constitution permitting religious practices, the practice and performance of tsam dancing has grown enormously. Many of the costumes and masks used for tsam dances survived Soviet purges of monasteries and temples by being buried, hidden, or stored in museums such as the Choijin Lama Temple Museum.

Tibet[]

Tibetans usually perform chams to large audiences during the Monlam Prayer Festival.^[12]

See also[]

• Chöd
• Nechung Oracle
• Trance

References[]

Further reading[]

• Forman, Werner (photographs) & Rintschen, Bjamba (text) Lamaistische Tanzmasken: der Erlik-Tsam in der Mongolei. Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1967 (text translated into German from Russian)

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cham dance.

• Description of Black Hat dance in Bhutan
• Examples of Cham Dance
• Video of Dance of the Ging