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Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.266.1, Connecticut Historical S ...
TibetFest 2018 & New Lives New England Collaboration
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.266.1, Connecticut Historical Society, Copyright Undetermined

TibetFest 2018 & New Lives New England Collaboration

Subject (Tibetan, born 1959)
Subject (Tibetan, born 1948)
Subject (Tibetan)
Subject (Tibetan American)
Subject (Tibetan)
Date2018 June 30
Mediumborn digital images
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.266.1-.13
DescriptionPhotographs of TibetFest 2018.

2015.196.266.1: born digital image showing Tibetan soup being cooked for a communal dinner during overnight camping at the festival

2015.196.266.2: born digital image showing Connecticut Tibetan weaver Tentso Sichoe

2015.196.266.3-.4: born digital images showing Vermont Tibetan Migmar Tsering with his group performing at the festival

2015.196.266.5: born digital image showing a Tibetan singer performing; he had been a member of the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in India.

2015.196.266.6: born digital image showing Tsering Yangchen selling her mother Kunga Choekyi's innovative nail product

2015.196.266.7: born digital image showing monk creating a sand mandala

2015.196.266.8-.9: born digital images showing traditional TIbetan decorative carved wood

2015.196.266.10: born digital image showing a Tibetan long-necked lute, dramyen

2015.196.266.11: born digital image of Connecticut Tibetan artist Jampa Tsondue standing in front of thangka paintings

2015.196.266.12-.13: born digital images showing Tseyang Lhamo wearing a traditional woven women's apron
NotesSubject Note: TibetFest, a volunteer-run annual weekend-long event that celebrated the cultural heritage of Tibet and Tibetans, has been held since 2005. Begun by Michelle Weik of Litchfield who organized the festival along with Tibetans living in Connecticut and New York, TibetFest has been a community-driven, unique, and very popular event. Funds raised are donated to Tibetan causes. The 2018 festival was organized by Students For a Free Tibet, based in New York City, and in 2022 the festival began to be managed by the Tibetan Association of Connecticut. The Festival has presented many renowned Tibetan musicians onstage. Guest speakers give audiences up-to-date information on the situation in Tibet. Audience members and performing artists gather for dance circles. The arts area includes monks creating sand mandalas and butter sculptures, artists showing woodcarving, weaving, and thangka panting – several of them Tibetan artists living in Connecticut, and photography exhibits. New York and New England Tibetan artisans and vendors sell Tibetan art works, books, and jewelry, and food vendors provide Tibetan foods.

Since the Tibetan Resettlement Project brought 21 Tibetans to live in Connecticut in 1992, the state has become home to one of the fastest growing Tibetan communities in the U.S. Several Connecticut Tibetans are traditional artists of great skill who are deeply committed to expressing and passing on Tibetan culture. The story of the Tibetan community in Connecticut shows resilience and commitment to making a home in a new world. These first arrivals were sponsored to live in Old Saybrook, and they quickly found housing, jobs, and a welcome there. Many of them still had spouses, parents, and children back in India and Nepal so they applied for family reunification visas which often took years. The community has thrived and grown rapidly, choosing to remain in this part of the state. Recently the availability of jobs especially in the Asian gaming sections of Connecticut’s two casinos has encouraged many new Tibetan arrivals to settle in Norwich, bringing the community’s population up to about 500. Tibetans gather regularly for community social and ceremonial celebrations in Norwich and Old Saybrook, and they work tirelessly to educate others about the difficult situation faced by Tibetans in Tibet as they fight to protect their centuries-old culture that is threatened by a dominant political and social Chinese presence.

Many of the community’s excellent traditional artists continue a wide variety of art forms as a way to sustain their language and culture and pass their heritage on to their children. Music and dance, featuring flute player Lakedhen Shingsur and dancers both young and old, are part of every Tibetan gathering especially Losar (New Year) and the Dalai Lama's birthday celebration in July. Dadon, a leading singer and composer of popular music in Tibet, was very active in performing in Connecticut and for several large Tibet benefit concerts in New York City. Yeshi Dorjee, a Buddhist monk, lives in Old Saybrook where he offers spiritual support for the community’s ceremonies and teachings. A multi-talented artist, Yeshi creates sand mandalas, butter sculptures, religious paintings, book illustrations, and is a storyteller. Jampa Tsondue paints thangkas, religious images of deities and Buddhist teachings, and has taught his daughter this process. Carpet weavers Tentso Sichoe and Kunga Choekyi participated in CCHAP’s Apprenticeship Program to share and teach their specialized craft and produce new carpets on a loom donated by weaver Tsultim Lama. Tibetan families use these folk arts every day in their homes, especially in the rooms devoted to their Buddhist spiritual practice. Many of these artists as well as other Tibetans from New York and New England participate in TibetFest, an annual gathering in Litchfield County that that began in 2005.


In 2016, CCHAP was part of a collaborative project (New Lives New England) that brought Migmar Tsering’s Vermont-based Tibetan performing group to TibetFest to connect with Connecticut Tibetans and develop reciprocal cultural heritage activities. These visiting artists and Connecticut Tibetan community members camped out nearby for the weekend, creating a social gathering that was eagerly anticipated as an important part of the festival. Several Connecticut-based Tibetan artists performed and displayed art work at the festival, along with their families. In a follow-up to this visit, Connecticut Tibetan artists, along with newcomer artists from other cultural groups, traveled to Burlington VT for an artists exchange gathering. Substantial photographic and video materials are present in the CCHAP archive relating to these event, this community, and the artists.


Subject Note: This TibetFest event intersected with another CCHAP project. New Lives New England was a two-phase collaborative project organized by the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program (CCHAP) at ICR, the Vermont Folklife Center, and Cultural Resources, Inc. in Maine. The project worked with refugee and new immigrant artists now living in the three states to develop gatherings, demonstrations, and exhibits that brought these artists together across the region to collaborate, develop their own initiatives, and extend their art forms. Connecticut newcomer artists often travel around the region to visit members of their communities in the other states. They are aware of the activities and the cultural resources in Maine and Vermont as well as in other New England states, and see a great benefit in sharing their artistic skills with fellow communities. The project aimed to foster a rich cross-fertilization among the artists and groups that would result in teaching and learning that would bring new initiatives and income to the communities as they increase their connections and opportunities. Project activities provided a chance for visitors to meet these talented artists, learn more about their cultures, and try some of their art forms. Another project goal focused on assisting the newcomer artists in sharing their traditions, which they love to do, forging strong connections between these new neighbors and public audiences. In sharing these traditions, new connections could be made with a larger public audience who may otherwise know little about them (their new neighbors).

The project received funding and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Greater Hartford Arts Council through contributors to its United Arts Campaign and the United Way Community Campaign, the Connecticut Office of the Arts/DECD, the Aurora Foundation for Women and Girls, the Connecticut Humanities Council, and the three partner organizations as well as the Connecticut Historical Society in 2016 and 2017.

The first New Lives convening held in Burlington, Vermont in April 2013, introduced CCHAP to the Vermont Tibetan community and their excellent musicians. Tibetans in Connecticut, many visual and music artists among them, developed a plan to host the Vermont group for a gathering in Old Saybrook under this proposed project, to help them with ideas and strategies for offering cultural classes and trainings to young Tibetans in the rapidly growing Connecticut Tibetan community (now close to 500).

In 2016, this plan resulted in a visit from the Vermont-based Tibetan performing group led by Migmar Tsering to Connecticut’s TibetFest, to perform, connect with Connecticut Tibetans, and develop reciprocal cultural heritage activities. Artists and Tibetan community members camped out nearby for the weekend, creating a unique social gathering that was eagerly anticipated as an important part of the festival. Several Connecticut-based Tibetan artists performed and displayed art work at the festival, along with their families.


Biographical Note: Musician and storyteller Migmar Tsering, a Tibetan refugee who has lived in Vermont since 2011, plays traditional music on the dramyin, a long-necked, seven-string lute. Born in Tibet and brought up in India, Migmar is a singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and traditional Tibetan dance instructor. For nearly ten years, he has taught and performed Tibetan music and dance in the Burlington, Vermont, area. He works as the O.N.E. Community Center Site Coordinator through Burlington VT Parks and Recreation Dept. Migmar participated in CCHAP’s collaborative project New Lives New England that brought Connecticut Tibetans and other newcomer artists to Migmar’s home in Burlington VT, then he visited TibetFest in 2016 to connect with Connecticut Tibetans there, and his group has performed at TibetFest several times since then.


Additional audio, video, and/or photographic materials exist in the archive relating to these artists and these events


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
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