Lhamo

Masked dancers (hero and leaping dog) at the Wangdue Phodrang tshechu, Bhutan, 2007.
Dance of the Lord of Death and his Consort, Paro, Bhutan, at a tsechu festival in 2006.
Lhamo during Qing dynasty
Ache Lhamo in front of Gongkar Dzong, 1939

Lhamo (Standard Tibetan: ལྷ་མོ, romanized: Lha mo), or Ache Lhamo, is a classical secular theatre of Tibet with music and dance that has been performed for centuries, whose nearest western equivalent is opera. Performances have a narrative and simple dialogue interspersed with comedy and satire; characters wear colorful masks. The core stories of these theatrical plays are drawn mostly from ancient Indian Buddhist folk tales, lives of important people and historical events from Tibetan civilization. However the ceremonial, dance and ritual spectacles strongly reflects the Tibetan Royal Dynastic period.

Very similar traditions are found in Bhutan and other regions influenced by Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan culture. There are at least three unique schools of Lhamo: Kyimulunga, Gyangara, and Chungba.[1]

  1. ^ Ahmed, Syed Jamil (Spring 2006). "Tibetan Folk Opera: "Lhamo" in Contemporary Cultural Politics". Asian Theatre Journal. 23 (1): 149–178. doi:10.1353/atj.2006.0001. JSTOR 4137092. S2CID 49340054. Retrieved 7 April 2021.