The Construction of "Tibetan Culture" at Dharamsala : A Consideration of the Tibetan Theater "Lhamo" and the "Zhoston" Festival

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze the construction of "Tibetan culture" by refugees and expatriate writers as well as its byproducts. More concretely, this paper describes the process of constructing Tibetan culture by focusing on a particular genre of the performing arts that is often referred to as the most important facet of Tibetan culture by members of the refugee society in Dharamsala, as well as in descriptions about it by many foreign writers and intellectuals. Through a critical examination of that cultural production, this paper also considers its negative dimensions, which result from situating performing art as the most important part of Tibetan culture. The Tibetan refugees referred to here are those who have left Tibet since the 1950's and have taken exile in Dharamsala (India). They have spent almost 50 years reconstructing their lives and recreating what we call culture. However, many of the contexts of this cultural recreation changed-some in dramatic fashion. I will show that Lhamo, or what is called the Tibetan opera, and Zhoston, the space of performing Lhamo, have radically changed during the 50 years of exile. This paper explores the construction as the most important part of Tibetan culture by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. He has often preached of the importance of Lhamo to audiences and to people at the Zhoston and at various other sites. Echoing the Dalai Lama's opinion, students are taught that Lhamo is extremely important. Many Tibetans have also recognized Lhamo as the most important part of Tibetan culture, and we can find many people, including foreign tourists and researches, who come to observe Lhamo. However, before the exile, Lhamo was just one performance held around Lhasa, a city to which numerous Tibetans went on pilgrimages. Many people who did not live near Lhasa were thus unfamiliar with it. However, from today's perspective, it is considered the most important feature of Tibetan culture. That means that Lhamo's meaning has changed as a cultural performance since the exile began. That observation also applies to Zhoston. Based on information gathered directly from refugees, we now think of Zhoston as the Lhasa performance space for Lhamo at Drepung and Norbulingka. However, one could find other styles of Zhoston in Tibet before exile. Before then, it was a "comforting festival" for monks, and the performance of Lhamo was one expression of those festivals. Zhoston was also held in regions throughout Tibet, not only in special performance spaces in Lhasa (Drepung and Norbulingka). Like the changes in Lhamo, we can say that Zhoston has also since changed its meaning as a performance space in the wake of the exile. After the establishment of the exile community in Dharamsala, the meaning of Lhamo changed from a local performance centered in Lhasa to the most important expression of Tibetan culture. Zhoston also changed its meaning, from a festival space seen in various regions throughout Tibet, to the performance space of Lhamo as a Lhasa-based festival. In that context, Lhamo and Zhoston have been described as important dimensions of Tibetan identity. For the exile community, their performances have also become a sort of cultural protest against China. Those changes have been caused by a number of factors. This paper analyzes the process of the changes and demonstrates how the conjunction of the Tibetan exile community and descriptions of Lhamo and Zhoston by Tibetan and foreign intellectuals have imbued these events with special meaning, constructing them as the most important dimensions of Tibetan culture and its most important performance space. I thus situate this paper within a theory of cultural objectification, which focuses on the practices both local people and outsiders undertake in the creative process of constructing culture. However, that process has also produced what can be called a

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