Bhutan seems like a fairytale kingdomwith its gods, visionaries and celestial dreamers, monasteries and fortress (dzong) from another world. The demons of the spiritual world against which each soul is confronted in the process of reincarnation, live together with the marvels of nature sublimated by the splendour of these mountains.

The sacred dance Cham, through its movements and whirling, is in keeping with an extension of pre-Buddhist rites of fertility and exorcism, as well as Indian tantra rituals. This show will begin with a procession, the Raksha Mangcham, with the appearance of a large effigy of Yama (Shinje in Tibetan), the God of Death who comes to judge the deceased, just as the Bardo-Thödol, Book of the dead, describes. This genuine bestiary from the beyond, is often “disrupted” by the antics of these agitators of ritual, these clowns, personifying and mimicking all sorts of characters.Called ”atsara” (“masters”), they represent the former Indian sages who, in the past, came to spread the Dharmain the Himalayan countries and whose appearance often did not hint of their wisdom.

A multitude of dances like the Dramitsé nga-cham(Dramitsé drum dance), a typically Bhutan dance in which fifteen drummers and a cymbal player, dressed in yellow silk, turn tirelessly, make us drift into the dreams and visions of a heavenly world. The storyteller Manipa and his itinerant temple Tashi Gomangevoke through ranting narrative, the exploits of the great lamas and the great Buddhist saints.

In collaboraton with the « Royal Academy of Performing Arts » and the monks from the Thimphu monastery.

Artistic advice: Snafu Wowkonowitch & Alain Weber  -   Light: Christophe Olivier

Last Tour in october 2005: * Cité de la Musique in Paris, Fr * Théâtre du Muselet in Chalons en Champagne, Fr * French Institute of Dusseldorff, Germany * Cankarjev Dom in Ljubljana, Slovenia * Casa da Musica in Porto, Portugal