Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.1019.1, Connecticut Historical ...

Images(2)

Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.1019.2, Connecticut Historical ...

Tibetan Culture in Connecticut Bus Tour, 2006

SubjectPortrait of Lakedhen Shingsur (Tibetan, born 1962)

Date2006 March 25

Mediumphotographic prints

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

CopyrightIn Copyright

Object number2015.196.1019.1-.2

DescriptionPhotographs from the Tibetan Culture in Connecticut bus tour held on March 25, 2006, in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.

(.1) Lakedhen Shingsur is playing the flute for the bus tour participants at the store Dharma Jewel. There are tapestries, jewelry, and pottery in the background.

(.2) A Buddhist flag in the yard of a house in Old Saybrook. The flag was photographed while on the tour. It is dark green with a gold border on three sides. There are blue, yellow, white, and red fringes on one side. There is a blue house in the background.

NotesSubject Note: The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Institute for Community Research collaborated with Manchester Community College (MCC) on a cultural tourism project in 2004-2008. Each year, three or four day-long bus tours visited cultural events and artist studios in ethnic communities living in different parts of the state as a way for new audiences to experience and meet Connecticut’s ethnic and occupational communities. Project goals included 1) expanding awareness of unfamiliar art forms and heritage tourism assets, 2) encouraging access to little-known ethnic or occupational communities, 3) creating audience and artist interactions, 4) stimulating sales and commissions of traditional arts and foods, and 5) developing new partnerships with community organizations and artists. The tours were developed and led by the Connecticut state folk arts program director, Lynne Williamson along with artists from each community. The partnership with MCC ensured that the tours were advertised in the Credit-Free Catalogue each semester. Audiences for the tours were primarily members of the Older Adults Association, a core audience for MCC’s Credit-Free courses.

Each day-long bus tour included a visit to folk artists’ studios or shops to observe them producing or selling their work, while engaging with visitors in discussions on the history of their communities and the background of their art form. Tours stopped at related landmarks and/or restaurants in the artists’ neighborhoods, or attended a local community festival. The artists and community groups visited gave insightful presentations on their cultures and artistic traditions. Each tour included a traditional dinner or lunch where visitors could sit down to eat and talk with the artists and community members. CCHAP received an NEA Challenge America Cultural Tourism grant for a pilot series of bus tours in 2004. Subsequent project funders also included the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.

On March 25, 2006, the Tibetan Culture in Connecticut tour visited Old Saybrook, the center of Connecticut’s growing Tibetan community. At the community’s store Dharma Jewel, participants viewed Tibetan art work, met local Tibetan artists and musicians, and learned about the culture and history of Tibet from members of the Tibetan Association of Connecticut. The group also visited the home of local artists Jampa Tsondue and Kunga Choekyi where the family showed their beautiful meditation room with spiritual art work they created. Then the group traveled to Middletown for lunch at Little Tibet, a restaurant and shop run by Phumba, an artist and trader from Tibet.

Biographical Note: Born in Gangtok, Sikkim in 1962, Lakedhen Shingsur is a natural musician who taught himself to play flute while at the Indo-Tibet Buddhist Cultural Institute school in West Bengal. He became a versatile musician also able to accompany on damyen. He formed an amateur dance and drama club which still exists to present Tibetan song and dance, learning songs from Tibetan elders living in Sikkim. For ten years he was a member of the Sikkim National Performing Arts Troupe, touring in India, Canada, the Middle East, and visiting the U.S. for the Festival of India in 1982. He has lived in Old Saybrook and Clinton, CT since arriving in 1992.

Lakedhen's primary instrument is the transverse flute. Usually made of bamboo with 6 finger holes, these are played throughout the Himalayan region. As a working musician Lakedhen's repertoire included modern Indian film scores as well as the folk music of Tibet, Sikkim, and Nepal. He learned many songs from the director and other members of the song and drama troupe, representing a number of ethnic groups from the region. Love songs, traditional welcomes for guests, Buddhist spiritual lessons, historical events, dance songs, and odes to the beauty of Sikkim are some common folk song subjects.

Lakedhen has led a folk music and dance group from the Tibetan community in southeastern Connecticut, teaching traditional Tibetan music and language in the community and performing at celebrations and festivals with his music group and students. He was featured in the CD "Sounds Like Home - Connecticut Traditional Musicians" which can be heard on the CHS YouTube channel.

"One of our songs is Dhana-Hain Roupaun: Sikkim the valley of rice, its smiling faces, its peace, prosperity and contentment, its imposing grandeur are all a part of its heritage. Another song is called Gha-To-Ki-To: An age old tradition of welcome. Guests are served chang, a millet brew, or soicha, butter tea, as a welcome in all Sikkimese homes."

Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for this artist and this event.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

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