15th April: The Tibetan Shoton festival, which lasted a week, came to a close late on Wednesday night with a day-long opera performance on “Prince Norsang” on the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) grounds. The festival’s concluding ceremony was attended by Speaker Khenpo Sonam Tenphel of the 17 Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, as well as Education Kalon Tharlam Dolma. Secretaries and personnel from the CTA and the Dalai Lama’s office were present. TIPA’s Interim Director Sonam Choephel thanked USAID and Tibet Fund for financing the festival before kicking off the opera performance.
TIPA initiated its 25th Tibetan Shoton Festival which celebrates Tibetan Opera from April 6 to 13 here at Dharamshala. Shoton translates to “yogurt banquet” in Tibetan. Tibetan artists perform traditional operas throughout the event, and prominent monasteries showcase enormous Thangkas – Buddha paintings. The ShoDun Festival commonly known as the Yogurt Festival or Banquet is an annual festival held at Norbulingka in Lhasa. Since exile, Tibetans celebrate the festival at TIPA in Dharamshala. Tibetan opera is one of Tibet’s ten sciences. Along with poetry, composition, and other minor sciences, it is classified as one of the five minor sciences.
On the second day of Shoton Festival, at Tsuglagkhang, His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave a special audience to the eight participating troupes of the 25th Shoton festival in Dharamshala, as well as members of the Middle Way Approach Conference.
In his address to the crowd, His Holiness expressed his happiness at the start of the Shoton Festival, saying that it reminds him of Tibet, where it is celebrated with great zeal and enthusiasm. His Holiness emphasized the importance of Tibetan opera as an integral element of Tibetan culture, saying that Tibetans in exile must continue to preserve and maintain it. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama advised that we Tibetan cannot expel the Chinese from our country through violence, however, by adopting a middle-ground approach to policy, we can learn to cohabit peacefully while maintaining our individual identities.