Ladakh

LADAKH

Central Ladakh ~ photo nathan whitmont

Being politically a part of India, and culturally, historically, an extension of Tibet, where Tibetan Buddhist practices have been the foundation of culture for more than a thousand years, Ladakh became, by default, a sanctuary for Cham, and still today Cham is performed in its monasteries in an unbroken and uncompromised tradition.

Ancient Dances Of Ladakh

Cham

The Vanishing Dances Of Ladakh

by CoC Director Joseph Houseal

CoC In Ladakh

CoC produced its seminal work, a DVD “Lamayuru Sanctuary of Dance” in 2000-2001 and has revisited for update in 2008.

In summer 2011 CoC initiated the Rapid Inventory Project lead by Rigyal Rinpoche under the guidance of Togden Rinpoche of Phyang Gompa, a mission to survey every gompa in Ladakh in Zanskar in order to inventory the state of Cham in the region.

The Ancient Monastery at Basgo

Learn more about the Kingdom of Ladakh

The People Of Ladakh

A farm girl in the Nubra Valley, northernmost valley in Ladakh.

Knowing I wanted to videotape dance images painted on crumbling murals in the Avalokiteshvara Temple, some boys fetched us one night and “broke into” the temple making absolutely everything available to us, in every cupboard, behind every altar. Putting masks on themselves, they danced until they were laughing too hard. I informed the Rinpoche what the boys had done the next day thinking I needed to apologize for taking the liberty. Instead the Rinpoche smiled, “ I used to do that when I was a child.”
Joseph Houseal

TOURSIM
A nexus point on the routes of the Silk Road, Ladakh has been a cultural mixing pot for thousands of years. Today a mixture of Indo-Tibetan have been joined by a swell of Indians from a wide array of ethnicities, lured by the sudden explosion in tourism.

"One thing I have learned showing our dance documentation video work to Tibetans in exile, even those deeply interested in the preservation of the Cham, is that the first thing they notice is the local element of identity – who is from where, what cloth or hat or food appears. The humanity is what they long for, what makes them smile. The simple markers of daily life."
CoC Director Joseph Houseal

The Chang Tang region of Eastern Ladakh is home to traditional Tibetan Nomads.

The Nomads of Chang Tang
Along the border of Western Tibet, nomads still carry on the traditions of their ancestors, herding sheep and goats from which they gather pashmina, the valuable wool, which they sell in the markets of Kashmir.

Muslim school girls
The village of Turtok, just 5 kilometers from the Line Of Control with Pakistan, was opened to non-indian tourists for the first time in 2010.

The walled home belonged to an old Buddhist nun and her younger sister who was in her mid-fifties. They lived together and they were entirely self-sufficent within the walls of their garden, except for tea and milk and the occasional package of biscuits. They grew cabbage and barley and potatoes and vegetables, composted easily using the clever and hygienic Ladakhi toilet (an elevated outhouse into which one shovels a bit of dirt after each use), and planted flowers in between the cabbages so it would be pretty.