Tibetan Artistes Fest begins in Dharamsala
The three-day Tibetan Artistes Festival begun in Dharamsala on Friday. Over 30 Tibetan artistes, musicians and writers from the United States, Canada, Australia and from India are here to participate in the festival.
The festival is also a platform for Tibetan artistes to tell stories about their freedom struggle and the Chinese propaganda. The organiser of the festival, Bhuchung D Sonam, who is also a writer, said, “It’s an important thing that we need to tell stories.”
He added, “I think stories are really important for Tibetans. We have a lot of stories to tell based on our real experience.”
Sonam said that the Chinese were spending a huge amount of money on propaganda material whereas the Tibetan stories were based on human experience. “So, for us telling stories is really important and people, who tell the best stories, are artistes. I think it’s really important for us to get together and kind of understand what art can do, how we can tell our stories better, how we can make ourselves hear better,” he added.
Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan activist and writer, said, “Art when it’s in deep there is an understanding and an articulation and performance. It’s very powerful, much more powerful than dictatorship. It is by nature, such a power that it empowers our community and freedom struggle. And this is I think what is providing the leadership to Tibetans inside Tibet today and naturally China is scared of Tibetan artists.” He added, “There are a number of singers who came from Tibet, writers who came from Tibet. They naturally tell the stories of Tibet and those who are born in India we also talk about what is happening inside and how we are leading the freedom movement forward.”
Tsering Yangzom Lama, a Tibetan writer from Canada, said, “My book ‘We measure the Earth with our Bodies’ is a story of a Tibetan family that decides to leave Tibet in the early days of Chinese invasion and going into exile and is basically a story of 50 years in-exile.”
Tenzin Choegyal, a Tibetan musician based in Australia, expressed his thoughts through songs. Choegyal’s album ‘Songs from The Bardo’ was nominated at the 63rd Grammy Awards in 2020.
