Auspicious Signs: Tibetan Arts in New England - Thupten Tenzin
SubjectPortrait of
Thupten Tenzin
(Tibetan)
PhotographerPhotographed by
Phillip Fortune
Date1996
MediumPhotography; color slide on plastic in cardboard mount
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightCopyright Held By Phillip Fortune
Object number2015.196.225.1-.5
DescriptionSlides showing musician Thupten Tenzin playing damyen and gyuman. Photos taken by Phillip Fortune for the "Auspicious Signs: Tibetan Arts in New England" exhibit project and catalogue.
2015.196.225.1: Slide showing Thupten holding damyen
2015.196.225.2: Slide showing Thupten playing gyumang
2015.196.225.3: Slide showing Thupten playing gyumang
2015.196.225.4: Slide showing Thupten at gyumang, smiling
2015.196.225.5: Slide showing Thupten holding damyen
NotesBiographical Note: Thupten Tenzin's parents fled from the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, traveling on foot for about ninety days over the Himalayan mountains when he was three years old. The family settled in Ladakh, India, near the border with Tibet. At age 19, Thupten went to the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharmsala, India to train as a music and dance teacher. He was sponsored by Tibetan Children's Village (TCV), an organization dedicated to educating the children of nearly 100,000 Tibetan refugees living in India. Prime Minister Nehru said that Tibetans could send their children to any of the schools in India, but Dalai Lama said we need special schools for us, so we can keep alive our culture for Tibetan children. After an intensive three-year special course in both music and dance, TCV sent him back to Ladakh to teach in one of the five new Tibetan schools. He later moved to the TCV school in Patli-khul, developing a program in music and dance from the three principal regions of Tibet, organizing a performing troupe, and teaching Tibetan language.2015.196.225.1: Slide showing Thupten holding damyen
2015.196.225.2: Slide showing Thupten playing gyumang
2015.196.225.3: Slide showing Thupten playing gyumang
2015.196.225.4: Slide showing Thupten at gyumang, smiling
2015.196.225.5: Slide showing Thupten holding damyen
Thupten's teacher at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts was an old master musician named Lhutse who had trained with a folk opera group in Lhasa. Because he was learning many different instruments, songs, and dances, Thupten's instruction and practice lasted from early morning until evening. He became proficient in five instruments important in secular Tibetan music: damyen, a six-stringed lute which is often depicted in Buddhist teachings and paintings as a symbol of the harmony of existence, also appearing as a magical instrument in folk tales; gyumang, a type of zither played with a small hammer; piwang, a two-stringed fiddle in both large and small sizes, and bamboo flute.
These instruments often provide solo or ensemble accompaniment for folk dances which differ from region to region in Tibet. Thupten's repertoire included a secular, quite rigorous classical music which he can also compose. After moving to Norwalk in 1993, he formed a folk dance group with other Connecticut Tibetans, performing around New England for two years. Thupten's two daughters joined him from India in 1996. He passed away in the late 1990s.
Subject Note: "Auspicious Signs: Tibetan Arts in New England" was an exhibit project developed by the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program (CCHAP) at the Institute for Community Research in Hartford in 1996. The exhibit opening and a festival of Tibetan arts and music served as the major public events of an eighteen-month research and programming project conducted by CCHAP in partnership with the Tibetans. The project celebrated the Tibetan community's preservation and practice of their traditions in America.
Since the Tibetan Resettlement Project brought twenty-one Tibetans to live in Connecticut, the state has become home to one of the fastest growing Tibetan communities in the United States. Several Connecticut Tibetans are traditional artists of great skill who are deeply committed to expressing and passing on Tibetan culture. Members of the Tibetan community are also dedicated to educating others about the difficult history and circumstances of the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
The collaborative project team consisted of three Tibetan project assistants, exhibit designer Sarah Buie, the Tibetan Cultural Center of Connecticut, artist Sonam Lama who was at the time Vice President of the Massachusetts Tibetan Association, and curator/folklorist Lynne Williamson, then director of CCHAP. The interdisciplinary nature of the team served to broaden the project's outreach to regional Tibetan communities as well as to incorporate a rich variety of expertise and perspectives.
The project team produced an exhibit displaying Tibetan religious art as well as everyday traditional arts, a day-long festival featuring artists, performers, demonstrations, and discussions, and an illustrated catalogue. Artists Jampa Tsondue, Ngawang Choedar, and Tsering Yangzom were featured in a video documenting their artistic process.
Funders included the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Community Folklife Program administered by the Fund for Folk Culture and underwritten by the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund; the National Endowment for the Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Program, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Connecticut Humanities Council and the Institute for Community Research.
To mark the exhibit opening, the Tibetan community held a festival attended by over three hundred people, including Tibetans from all over the region. Four music and dance groups performed outside, while in the exhibit gallery three Tibetan artists demonstrated weaving, woodcarving, and thangka painting. The event also featured a bazaar, a common Tibetan cultural activity. Many Tibetans are keen traders, maintaining links to Dharamsala, India, and Nepal through import of goods to the U.S. and sale through small shops here. Six Tibetan vendors from all over the region set up tables during the festival with a great variety of Tibetan books and crafts. Lakedhen and five other community members had risen at dawn to prepare food, which they sold during the day. Several speakers described the background of the project, the story of the Connecticut community, the current political situation in Tibet, and the history and character of Tibetan culture. Cholsum dance group from New York City and musicians Lakedhen and Thupten performed and accompanied the dancers. Singer DaDon and her group played for over an hour.
Additional audio, video, and/or photographic materials exist in the archive relating to this artist.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
