Womad

Tashi Lhunpo Monks

The authentic all-singing, all-dancing monastic experience...

Welcome though it is that the likes of REM and Radiohead play Free Tibet concerts, their music is hardly a substitute for the authentic Tibetan Buddhist experience. Enter the singing and chanting monks of the Tashi Lhunpo monastery, exiled from Tibet itself in 1959 and now located in southern India. "We don't feel this is a show," according to the order's general secretary, Kelkhang Rinpoche. "We try to recreate what we do in the prayer hall in the monastery." This involves the extended chanting of mantras and prayers with occasional musical interludes provided by the dung-kar (a conch shell trumpet), the giant brass dung-chen (three-metre long horns), hand bells, ritual drums and cymbal crashes. The effect is mesmerising. But if you think it all sounds a little austere, the accompanying dances are an extraordinary feast for the eyes, featuring masks with crowns of skulls and even a couple of jiving skeletons. It might be a faithful recreation of religious ceremony rather than a 'show', but it's a thrilling spectacle, all the same.

Biog by Nigel Williamson