This is a dance performed by young monks at Ganden Sumtseling Gompa, a monastery located north of the city of Zhongdian (Shangri-La) in Yunnan province on the southeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The dance begins with one monk emerging from the main temple. He performs a routine that initially faces the temple, then faces all the directions of the wind, and then spirals around a central point where there is a dark quilt and wooden square (these symbolize a demon). His dance eventually accelerates and incorporates jumping movements, and in its finale dozens of other monks join in to perform the circular dance around the quilt, until in the end they are all crowded around its center.
The dance concludes with couples of monks taking leaps towards the temple, praying towards its entrance, praying away from its entrance, and then jumping inside. Altogether this takes about three hours. The dance is performed annually, during a ritual where the monks dress in elaborate costumes and masks and dance around a large effigy of the demon (rather than a quilt). The purpose of the dance is to contain the angry spirit of the demon, possibly to recreate the Tibetan myth of the subjugation of an angry Himalayan goddess by an Indian monk, which popularized the monk and allowed for the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet. This video is an amalgamation of clips recorded during the initial monk’s rehearsal for the ritual.
