Tibetan Monks Make Mark On New Age Scene

Thu., Feb. 10, 2000

William Berry Correspondent

Tibetan Buddhist lamas from the Drepung Loseling Monastery will perform in Spokane as a part of their international tour, titled “Sacred Music and Sacred Dance for World Healing.”

The Tibetan Monks are renowned for their ability to sing up to three notes simultaneously by using their bodies as a resonating instrument. Their performances also include the use of traditional instruments, such as 10-foot dungchen trumpet, drums, bells, cymbals and gyaling horns. Brocade costumes and masks are used to help convey their roles and messages in their sacred dances.

The monks have made quite an impression on popular music and the New Age music scene. On past tours, they have performed with Kitaro, Paul Simon, Philip Glass, Eddie Brickell, Natalie Merchant, Patti Smith, the Beastie Boys, and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead. Two of their recordings have reached the Top 10 of the New Age charts: “Tibetan Sacred Temple Music” and the disc with the same name as this tour.

The two-hour show is a re-creation of the ritual performances which symbolize various forces from within and without, and which generate a purifying energy. An announcer will describe all of the musical and dance selections before they are performed.

These selections include invocations of the forces of goodness, melodies to release the mind from the ego-clinging habit, and the dance of the Snow Lion, which in Tibet symbolizes the fearless and elegant quality of the enlightened mind.

Money raised from the show will go to help raise awareness of the endangered Tibetan civilization and to Gonzaga students in the Program for International Education and Relief. This program has sent students on overseas missions in the past and is hoping to allow some students to travel to work with Tibetan refugees.

This sidebar appeared with the story: ON STAGE

Tibetan Monks “Sacred Music and Sacred Dance for World Healing” with the Tibetan Monks When/Where: Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Masonic Temple

Tickets: $12 ($10 for students), available at Auntie’s Bookstore, 4000 Holes and Moonshadow.

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