About
Founded in the San Francisco Bay area in 1989, Chaksam-pa is the premier traditional Tibetan performing group in North America. Tibetan opera was popularized in the 14th century by Thangtong Gyalpo, a Buddhist monk who traveled Tibet staging folk operas to finance the building of iron bridges to connect the scattered communities of this mountainous nation. This work earned him the honorific "Chaksam-pa," Iron Bridge Builder. Like the historical figure for whom they are named, today's Chaksam-pa is dedicated to building connections and sharing their rich cultural heritage.
As a result of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, over 120,000 Tibetans have fled their homeland since 1959. Their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, established a government in exile in Dharamsala, India; there he also founded the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) to help preserve cultural traditions being brutally repressed in their homeland. The members of Chaksam-pa are graduates of TIPA, where they were taught traditional performing arts by Tibetan masters.
The ensemble's wide repertoire reflects the diversity of Tibetan artistic expression, including pentatonic traveling songs from mountainous Kham (Eastern Tibet), traditionally sung on horseback in a powerful, high nasal voice that carries across the valleys; foot-stomping dance songs from the central Lhasa district; and the classical nangma style, known in urbane Lhasa as an entertainment for courtier picnics and festivals. Folk operas, lhamo, share historical drama and traditional folk tales in a style influenced by Buddhist morality plays.
Chaksam-pa includes four generations of TIPA-trained artists who have settled in various U.S. cites that are home to vibrant Tibetan communities. Performers appearing at the 2017 Lowell Folk Festival hail from Minneapolis; Portland, Oregon; New York, and San Francisco, where the group's artistic director, Tsering Wangmo, coordinates their work.