Creating Khaita—Joyful Dances: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Eva Leick*

I have called this kind of joyful dances “Khaita.”
(Namkhai Norbu, Starting the Evolution 93)

Abstract

Khaita—Joyful Dances is a project developed by the Tibetan Buddhist scholar Namkhai Norbu. It is a translocal singing and dancing practice consisting of around 400 Tibetan songs and 240 dances. This article investigates the historical and contemporary creation processes of Khaita dances. It identifies three stages of creation, feedback and performance and reflects on the challenges of Khaita dance-making after the death of Namkhai Norbu. The article relies on theories of reconstruction and reenactment and further uses dance analysis. In addition, it refers to my own dance experience when outlining the creation process of a new Khaita dance. 

Keywords: Khaita, Tibetan dance, dance-making, reconstruction, reenactment

What is a Khaita dance? Who creates Khaita choreographies and why? When can a dance be considered part of the Khaita corpus? Who decides that? How can a new Khaita dance be created when the main authority, Namkhai Norbu, has passed away?

In this article, I investigate the creation process of Khaita dances, both from a historical and contemporary perspective. By “historical,” I refer to the period of time between the beginning of Khaita Joyful Dances in 2011 and the death of Namkhai Norbu in 2018. Therein, I define the three stages that Khaita choreographies undergo during their making: the creation stage, the feedback stage and the performance stage.

Contextualizing Khaita—Joyful Dances

Khaita Joyful Dances (shortened to Khaita, from the Tibetan mkha’i rta), also known as Harmony in Space, is a project that was founded in 2011. It was devised by the Tibetan Buddhist scholar and Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) Master Namkhai Norbu (1938–2018).[1] He was renowned for his research activities and innovations in the field of Tibetan languages and literatures, and he was considered a master of the ancient teaching of Dzogchen Atiyoga (rdzogs chen), which is the “highest and most important path towards spiritual progress” and “the summit of all Tibetan [Buddhist] schools]” (“Dzogchen”) and a primordial state of knowledge of one’s nature, or what Adriano Clemente calls “the reality of human experiences in its immediacy“ (qtd. in Norbu, The Mirror 7). Khaita is a translocal and transcultural singing and dancing practice that performs two main functions; namely, the contribution and preservation of Tibetan culture and the promotion of presence and awareness.

Khaita dances aim to create harmony in daily life (“we learn to be present to the inner display of thoughts and emotions”), cultivating “relaxed presence in movement, harmony and joy,” and enabling the discovery of “our inner harmony by tuning into the melody as a group” (“Khaita Joyful Dances”). Through the practice of mindful dancing and singing in diverse groups, Khaita functions as a method to train non-judgmental, purposeful and non-reactive attention, resulting in more mature states of awareness and presence[2] as well as a more harmonious life. As such, Khaita perfectly aligns with Namkhai Norbu’s Dzogchen teachings that centre the development of self-awareness, self-realization and the application of unbiased presence in daily life. In this way, Dzogchen represents the highest Buddhist path of overcoming suffering.

In comparison to other Buddhist schools, movement is a central method in Namkhai Norbu’s teachings. In 1971, he began teaching Yantra Yoga, the oldest recorded yoga system in the world (Yantra Yoga,) as well as a series of Vajra Dances[3] in the 1990s. The Vajra Dances are formative for the later development of Khaita. Both Khaita and Vajra serve similar aims: fostering presence and awareness, harmony and relaxation. However, while the Vajra Dances are contemplative dances, with slow movements accompanied by sacred syllables (mantras) and danced on a large five-coloured mandala, Khaita uses popular, often fast-paced melodies and is not spatially constrained. When introduced in the International Dzogchen Community, Namkhai Norbu’s students, thus, already had certain familiarity with bodily methods yet were surprised by Khaita’s unusualness, with its popular melodies and fast development.

Besides its purpose as a Dzogchen method, Khaita also aims to promote Tibetan culture. Namkhai Norbu, who published important scientific works on the culture, history and language of Tibet,[4] and who had been committed to Tibetan music traditions since his youth,[5] saw the project as a means of supporting the endangered Tibetan culture and language: I realized that . . . these new Tibetan melodies also have the special value of communicating in words the aspiration, happiness and suffering of the Tibetan people . . . (Norbu, Message from Tibet 9).

Developing the Khaita practice within his International Dzogchen Community, Namkhai Norbu openly promoted the engagement with Tibetan songs and dances and, hence, their linguistic, cultural, spiritual and historical knowledges for all people: “Regardless of whether one is Tibetan or not, if all those who have a love for Tibetan culture can take an interest in these new Tibetan songs, this attitude will certainly be of help to the Tibetan culture” (Norbu, Message from Tibet 10).

Khaita is primarily danced by students of Norbu in the International Dzogchen Community centres around the world, without stage performance ambition. Yet, Khaita is open to everyone, regardless of religious/spiritual affiliation or knowledge of the Dzogchen teachings; it is increasingly practiced as a method to raise intercultural awareness, collaboration, mindfulness, physical coordination and wellbeing in institutions without Buddhist contexts.

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu (1913–2018). Used with permission: (2021), “Chögyal Namkhai Norbu,” International Dzogchen Community. Accessed 17 June 2024

The Khaita community is translocal and constituted by people from various ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, social classes, genders, ages and dance experiences. Khaita practice sessions, which usually include both dancing and singing sections, happen almost daily. Stage performances are also realized regularly, including at the British Museum (2018, 2019), on Gran Canaria (2017), as part of the New York City Dance Parade (2016) and at CID World Congress in Athens (2017).

Khaita Joyful Dances at annual CID Congress, Athens. Uploaded on YouTube by Khaita Joyful Dances, 20 Nov. 2013. Used with permission

The Khaita corpus of songs and dances was established in the last years of Namkhai Norbu’s life, between 2011 and 2018. It consists of around 400 Tibetan modern pop songs with Tibetan lyrics. They were selected by Namkhai Norbu according to their meanings, melodies and artists. To these selected songs, around 240 dances were created by international students of Namkhai Norbu. Some of the dances are based on Tibetan folk dances; some have been choreographed freely without a model; as a logical consequence of these two different approaches to choreographing, Khaita dances display a high diversity in their use of steps, mudras, formations, movement qualities, styles and levels of difficulty. They are influenced not only by the meaning of the respective song but also by the personal taste, dance background and choreographic experience of the person(s) creating them.

After Namkhai Norbu’s death in 2018, the creation process of dances was put on hold as experts were unsure how to continue his legacy. From 2022 onwards, some new dances to existing songs in the Khaita collection have been created by different people; amongst these dances is “Ngai Phayul,” which I co-created in 2023. I will investigate this dance as a contemporary case study in the second half of this article.

Due to Khaita’s creation history and application by diverse dancers around the world, it cannot rightfully be aligned with any other existing form of Tibetan dance. It neither belongs to the tradition of the sacred/Tantric Cham dances, nor to the folk opera Ache lhamo with its narrative characteristic, nor to the broad spectrum of Tibetan folk dances. While some Khaita choreographies re-enact well-known dances, particularly from the Tibetan regions of Amdo and Kham, and use a basic step repertory from Tibetan folk dance, Khaita dances follow their own guidelines and choreographic principles that have been established in the feedback processes by Namkhai Norbu. It rather follows its own lineage and has “grown” with Namkhai Norbu’s students over the last thirteen years, aligning with his objectives as a Dzogchen master, and it surprises in its innovation and combination of foci.

The Historical Creation Process of Khaita Dances (2011–18)

How and to what degree does Khaita draw on Tibetan folk dance? Who choreographs the Khaita dances? When is a dance approved as part of the Khaita collection? How are Khaita dances transmitted, preserved and remembered over years? To answer these questions, I follow theories of reenactment and reconstruction that provide a methodological frame for the analysis of existing Khaita dances.

Nicole Haitzinger differentiates between reenactment and reconstruction. She considers reconstruction to be the repetition of past performances that attempt to be as close as possible to the original and its displayed details in order to preserve cultural heritage (182). By contrast, she defines reenactment as the engagement with past performances that are fragmentarily combined and cross-read with anthropological, contemporary and pop cultural references (182–83). Thus, while reconstruction tries to reproduce past performances in detail, reenactment refers to them while staying present in the contemporary body, circumstances and conditions. As Maaike Bleeker states, reenactment is about the engagement with “work created in the past from the perspective of the present” (218). In what follows, I investigate the process of recreation and reenactment in Khaita.

The Creation Stage

There are two types of choreographies in the existing collection of Khaita dances: first, choreographies adapted from Tibetan music videos; second, choreographies created by Namkhai Norbu’s students reflecting the meanings of the Tibetan song lyrics. What both types of choreography-makings have in common are a feedback stage and a performance stage.

Stages in the making of Khaita choreographies. Photo: Eva Leick
Reconstruction of Tibetan Dances

Several Khaita choreographies reconstruct Tibetan dances and the dance style associated with the form in general. Choreographers consulted music videos that accompany Tibetan pop songs and worked with dancers of Tibetan decent in order to try to imitate their movements. Through dedicated effort, the choreographers established a corpus of steps integral to Tibetan folk dance together with characteristic arm movements.

Many Khaita dances that are based on Tibetan originals are similar to each other, typically containing combinations of basic steps (basic, lateral, alternate step and so on) and typical arm movements (scissor arms, wheel and so on). Over time, Khaita practitioners became accustomed to this way of moving and also developed a form-specific choreographic vocabulary; the reconstruction and learning of new dances sped up accordingly.

The perfection of the dances, including movement quality and style, is not considered a priority in Khaita, including in relation to their Tibetan models. Instead, Khaita prioritises the ability to remember several dances, quickly switch from one dance to the next, stay present in the movements and dance harmoniously with diverse people in a circle.

Correspondingly, Khaita dancers are mostly non-professionals. Instead of selecting those who can embody the qualities of the original Tibetan dance videos, Khaita invites everyone to dance regardless of previous dance backgrounds or physical abilities. A focus on the dance reconstruction fidelity would mean the exclusion of everyday people (time-limited and of varying abilities) who simply want to enjoy dancing together. For this reason, choreographic and stylistic “mistakes” are not considered problematic during Khaita practice sessions; participation, motivation, interest and team spirit are more relevant.

Example: Riwo Chak

One example of a Khaita dance with choreography that is based on an original music video is Riwo Chak (A Mountain Formed). The original video performed by artists from the Golog region shows a group of dancers in a meadow surrounded by snowy mountains. The dance is one of many songs compiled in a video uploaded in 2015 on YouTube (“Tibetan Circle Dance”).

 A Mountain Formed རི་བོ་མ་ཆགས་རི་བོ་ཆགས། Tibetan Golog circle dance. Uploaded on YouTube by Khaita Joyful Dances, 26 May 2018. Used with permission

The choreography used in Khaita is identical to the one in the video. Riwo Chak has an introductory part, consisting of basic steps in place facing towards the centre of the circle, and a continuous sequence of movements of seven different parts repeated until the end of the song. The individual parts of this sequence start with a combination of steps travelling clockwise along the circumference of the circle, with arms rotating from the shoulder and the side of the pelvis towards the head (part 1). After this, the left arm is raised for the duration of a double beat. Dancers then face the centre of the circle, rhythmically step right and left along the width plane (side to side), and simultaneously move the right and left arm (corresponding to the moving leg) towards the head while the other arm moves close to the body (part 2). Following this is a sequence of movements, in which dancers move forwards and backwards on the depth-axis (front and back) towards the centre of the circle and back again (part 3). The legs, thereby, perform simple steps, shifting the weight from one leg to the other. At the same time, the arms rotate three times at the height of the elbow. This is the most difficult part of the dance as it requires practiced coordination: while the legs perform four steps, the arms only rotate three times.

After approaching the centre of the circle and returning back to their place, dancers perform two or four basic steps while raising and lowering both arms towards their heads and back towards their feet (part 4). They then continue in the direction along the circle’s perimeter with simple steps, accentuating the raising of the knees, while swinging and bending their arms back and forward (part 5). This is followed by the raising of the arms from below towards the head, twice respectively, while dancers change body positions to slightly face inside and outside the circle (part 6). The sequence is then completed with simple steps, walking towards the direction of the circle and the arms swinging right and left above the head (part 7). The body, in doing so, turns rhythmically towards the other direction of the circle before continuing to move clockwise. This sequence, consisting of a total of seven different parts, is then repeated until the end.

The Khaita version of Riwo Chak represents an accurate recreation of the choreography displayed in the video. Like the original video, the Khaita video is filmed outdoors, evoking connections to nature. However, there is no mountain in the background. The costumes of the Khaita dancers are different to the Tibetan ones. The three female Khaita dancers wear black dresses with colourful circle patterns; the man wears jeans and a simple green Tibetan shirt.

“M 1.4.06 Riwo Chag རི་བོ་མ་ཆགས་རོ་བོ་ཆགས།| Dance demo.” Uploaded on YouTube by Khaita Joyful Dances,17 Sept. 2016. Used with permission

This shows how Tibetan dances are reconstructed from the YouTube video for Khaita. While the choreography is the same, aspects of atmosphere and costume recede to the background. In this way, the focus is on the reconstruction of movements only.

Media Transfer: Translating Text into Movement

Beyond reconstructions of Tibetan dances from music videos, many Khaita dances have been created by Namkhai Norbu’s students by referring to the song lyrics. In this process, a media translation from the written/sung text to movement occurs. The choreographies are diverse and influenced by individual styles and previous dance backgrounds of their makers. These dances include steps and combinations inspired by Tibetan folk dances, but they may also be composed of completely different movements.

A guiding principle for all new dance creations is that the movements refer to the meaning of the song. This is often done through mudras, symbolic hand gestures. No consistent Khaita mudra language exists, but some mudras for frequent words are similarly composed by different practitioners. The mudra for “flower,” for example, is usually formed by putting the lower parts of the palms together and opening the hands and fingers to resemble a flower. Other gestures are also possible, however, according to the creative vision of the dance-maker.

Combining meanings with movement adds a deeper layer to the dance. It goes beyond mere physicality as it activates the mind and gives intention to the movement. This way of Khaita dance-making relates to the Tibetan original as it focuses on its meaning and thus brings “Tibetanness” to the dance. It further fosters presence as the dancer needs to listen carefully to the song and keep its meaning in mind. As introduced in the beginning, the promotion of Tibetan culture as well as presence and harmony are the main reasons behind the Khaita project.

Example: Meypo Dranlu

One example of a Khaita song that translates its meaning into movements through mudras is Meypo Dranlu (Song for Remembering the Ancestors). While the musical dance part was reconstructed from the choreography displayed in the YouTube video by Rigzin Dolma and Tanzin, the singing parts were conceived by a Khaita expert. The Khaita choreography thereby fills the missing choreographic parts of the music video.

“M 3.4.05 Meypo Dranlu མེས་པོ་དྲན་གླུ། Song of Remembering Ancestors.” Dance demo, YouTube uploaded by Khaita Joyful Dances, 16 July 2015. Used with permission

The dance is structured in five parts that correspond to the five stanzas of the song. The first stanza speaks about “the great power of the white snow lioness” (Meypo Dranlu). The snow lion is the emblem of Tibet, associated with the region’s glaciers and snowy mountains, and generally represents power, fearlessness and joy. In the Khaita dance, the lion is represented by dancers putting their hands at the height of their hips with palms facing down and the fingers stretching away from the body (part 1). The legs perform simple weight shifts, rhythmically transferring the dancer’s weight from side to side and respectively raising the other leg away from the floor. After this, a combination of two mudras that represent the line of “this short song of remembering is my intention” is performed (Meypo Dranlu). Here, palms are crossed in front of the heart, slightly moving away from the body and then approaching it again. This symbolizes intention at the place of the heart. Next, both hands come close to the mouth and then open away from the body towards the head with arms moving away from each other. This represents the song. This combination is repeated after each stanza.

In the second stanza, the singers refer to a Tibetan creation myth, addressing “the Six Brothers who are the origin of the Tibetan generations” and the divine lineage of “good characters” (Meypo Dranlu). In the dance, this is symbolized by dancers raising their arms above their heads and bringing them down towards the height of their chest before opening them away from the body. This both symbolizes the connection to the divine above and an ancestral linage (part 2).

The third stanza extols the “glory of the Potala [that] exceeds the dimension of heaven” and “the golden light of its yellow roofs [that] spreads in four continents” (Meypo Dranlu). The golden lights of the palace’s roof are symbolized in the Khaita dance with a sudden opening of the fists with the fingers spread apart. This represents the spreading of light in all dimensions (part 3).

In the fourth stanza, dancers represent the “ten branches of knowledge that are like a treasure developed and spread in Tibet” (Meypo Dranlu). Dancers first show “ten” by raising the right and then the left arm with palms facing outwards at the height of their head. They then put the palms together and hold them in front of their heart before opening their arms and bringing them to the right side of their body with a rotating movement. This symbolizes the preciousness of the ten branches of knowledge and the spreading of these teachings (part 4).

Finally, the fifth stanza, evokes the land of Tibet where “cool waters descend melodiously from the melting snow” which makes the singers “remember [their] fatherland, the Land of Snow” (Meypo Dranlu). Dancers first trace out the shape of a mountain with their fingertips, performing the gesture above their heads; this gesture transforms into falling snow or water, symbolized by the arms moving towards the feet with palms facing inside and wiggling fingers. The arms then cross in front of the body and move away from each other to show the land formed by snow (part 5). The dance then finishes with a triple repetition of all movements for the line “this short song of remembering is my intention” (Meypo Dranlu).

The Feedback Stage

Until his death in 2018, Namkhai Norbu was the authority figure of Khaita and responsible for giving feedback to proposed dances. I call this the “feedback stage.” After having created a Khaita choreography (whether Tibetan-influenced or original), students would present their dances to Namkhai Norbu, who would then give oral feedback, ask for changes of movements or approve the dance just as presented. Namkhai Norbu’s final approval opened the dance to the public and included it in the Khaita corpus.

Two main principles can be derived from Namkhai Norbu’s feedback to proposed dances. First, striving for choreographic balance. Namkhai Norbu would, for example, ask choreographers to change turns from one direction to the opposite direction, creating a more generally balanced choreography. This feedback also required dancer’s flexibility in body and mind, raising their presence and awareness in movement, as one needs to be attentive to the changes within the dance. The second principle is the accurate representation of the songs’ meanings in movement. Namkhai Norbu often requested that choreographers change mudras or add new ones. This stemmed from his profound understanding of Tibetan language and culture and interpretation of a song’s meaning, which was itself based on his insight as a Buddhist master.

Notably, Namkhai Norbu’s feedback was understood as more relevant in the creation process of new Khaita choreographies than accuracy to the Tibetan original. Similarly, Namkhai Norbu’s corrections overruled the creative choreographic vision for dances created without a Tibetan model: for example, if Namkhai Norbu suggested changing a mudra proposed by a choreographer, it needed to be changed for the dance to be approved as part of the official Khaita corpus.

The Performance Stage

Khaita dances were made public after receiving feedback and official approval, entering the “performance stage.” They could now be practiced during daily Khaita sessions, taught in courses and prepared for performances. “Performance” here refers to the active embodiment of the dance itself, regardless of performance circumstances (such as an audience or stage).

Typically, each official Khaita choreography gets recorded. This serves to preserve the dance. Video recordings function as a tool for practitioners to recall or learn the choreography and enable the dance’s dissemination to a wider audience, especially online. It is thereby crucial that the choreography recorded remains true to Namkhai Norbu’s approved version. To this end, the Khaita community relies on corporeal knowledge of the people who created the dance and received Namkhai Norbu’s feedback to accurately prepare it for recording.

Khaita demonstration videos try to “fix” the dance, making it somehow permanent. As Susanne Foellmer points out, this connects to the ongoing debate on the nature of performing arts as ephemeral and the attempt to make them permanent, tangible, through means of non-ephemeral media such as films and photographs (18). I propose that Khaita dance videos need to be considered one of many performances of the same dance and, as such, represent a moment of the dance’s ongoing history and development. At the same time, they serve as the main reference points for learning and recalling.

With time, shifts and changes naturally happen to a dance: Khaita dances are performed frequently, often by different people in various places. As Foellmer describes, “corporeal differences” and “distinct modalities of bodies, gender or dance technique” lead to unavoidable transformations (19–20), particularly in both quality and style as each dancer’s body gets accustomed to the movements. Because these are unintentional changes, they cannot be considered purposeful reenactments. Instead, reenactments occur with intentional transformations of Khaita dances, usually for performances in front of an audience. In contrast to daily practice sessions where dances are often done in simple circle formations, complex formation changes are developed when training for a stage performance. Movement quality and style is worked on and synchronicity amongst dancers is emphasized. Furthermore, costumes are chosen that accentuate the dancers’ movements and thus visually influence the perception of the dance. In this way, purposeful reenactments of the original Khaita dance videos occur.

Ngai Phayul: A Contemporary Case Study

I now proceed to analyzing the making of Ngai Phayul (“My Fatherland”), which is my first Khaita dance that was choreographed in 2023 in collaboration with Monika Marcik. Our challenge was to create a Khaita dance without Namkhai Norbu’s feedback that fits into the Khaita corpus and follows its three creation stages.

Amongst others, questions that we dealt with were: How do we integrate “Tibetanness” in the dance? How do we respect the historical process of Khaita choreography-making? How do we compensate the lack of feedback from Namkhai Norbu? How can we ensure that the created dance does not remain “in vain” but is actually used by the Khaita community?

Our first step was the organization of an English translation of the Tibetan song. This was crucial for the transfer between mediums, from sung lyrics to dance. The song’s subject matter (“My Fatherland”) speaks to the riches of the Tibetan culture and landscape, endowed by the spiritual blessing of the Dharma. This subject gave us several reference points for creating mudras, specifically covering the representation of “Tibetanness” across mediums and adhering to Khaita’s first principle, which is the fostering of Tibetan culture.

During the creation stage, we first started choreographing individually, translating the song’s lyrics into movements. I created several mudras that connected to the content of the song. For example, the “king of Tibet” was represented with arms raised above the head and palms facing the sky. When meeting during a Khaita course in Czechia, Monika approved the symbol and added a musical detail to it. In this way, we continued with the creation of the dance by sharing our movement proposals and refining them.

The most challenging part of the creation stage was to imagine the group interactions and formation changes. Since Khaita dances generally highlight collectivity, choreographies are often designed for dancers to interact. For this reason, our proposed choreography for Ngai Phayul attempted to make dancers engage with each other. 

Our dance incorporated Khaita’s second principle; namely, fostering presence and awareness and collaboration between dancers. The dance is structured so that one “meets” a new person with each phrase, having to look them in the eye, opening their movements towards each other and taking each other by the hands. Dancers need to focus throughout the dance, concentrating on the steps, the group, the music and the space at all time.

We practiced the new dance with a group of Khaita experts every evening, slightly changing and specifying it according to dancers’ oral and physical responses. Their feedback was crucial and replaced the authoritative feedback by Norbu with a collective response.

Ngai Phayul. Excerpt from the training video, 2023. Copyright: Eva Leick, used with agreement of the dancers

Following creation and feedback stages, we opened Ngai Phayul to the wider Khaita community for the performance stage. We shot a reference video for people to study. Unexpectedly, a second feedback stage followed: from other experts’ responses to the dance, it became clear that it might be too difficult to be included in daily practice sessions. One of its challenges is that the number of dancers must be equal for the interactions to work. During the daily practice session, it is common to not have an even number of dancers. Consequently, I created a simplified version of the choreography without group interactions. Both the “original” version of Ngai Phayul and the “simplified” version suitable for daily practice are now included in the Khaita dance corpus.

As a further outcome of the performance stage, Ngai Phayul has so far been performed in two stage performance settings. Neither Monika nor I were involved in staging these performances; as such, it became independent from us, successfully “arriving” in the Khaita community.

To summarize, Ngai Phayul became a Khaita choreography by respecting and adhering to the historical dance-creation process as guided by Namkhai Norbu and the Khaita project’s main principles. Firstly, we worked collaboratively to create the dance. Secondly, we considered aspects of presence and awareness, and we designed the dance to include several interactions. We also integrated aspects of “Tibetanness” as proposed by the song lyrics by translating the meaning into mudras, thereby transferring meaning across mediums. Thirdly, we encouraged and valued the feedback provided to us by the collective authority of fellow Khaita experts. Fourthly, our dance demonstration video became a reference point that opened the dance for further performances. We, the choreographers, stepped back to make Ngai Phayul part of the Khaita corpus rather than the artistic property of two individuals. In this way, we created a Khaita dance that was wholly novel, with our approach in line with both the principles of the historical dance creation process and Namkhai Norbu’s ethos. 


Endnotes

[1] Namkhai Norbu is considered one of the most famous Dzogchen masters of modern times and expanded his teachings outside the Tibetan regions. He was the first to teach Dzogchen in Europe and the Americas (di Sarsina et al). At birth, he was recognized early as the reincarnation of Adzom Drugpa (1842–1924). In the 1960s, Namkhai Norbu worked as Professor of Tibetan and Mongolian Language and Literature at what is now Università di Napoli from 1962 to 1992 (di Sarsina et al.).

[2] See Leick for information on mindfulness in Khaita.

[3] For more information on Vajra Dances, see “Vajra Dance.”

[4] In addition to cited texts, see Norbu, The Light of Kailash; Crystal and the Way of Light; Necklace of gZi; Key for Consulting the Tibetan Calendar; and Drung, Deu and Bön.

[5] See Tucci and Norbu; Norbu, Musical Tradition of Tibetan People.

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Photo: Lubomir Michna

*Eva Leick is a researcher and dancer based in Austria currently employed at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria. She earned her PhD from the University of Salzburg in 2023, focusing on the practice of Khaita-Joyful Dances. Her research interests revolve around the effects of dance on individuals and groups, Tibetan folk dance, and the religious aesthetics connected to dance practices. Eva Leick is an active dancer and a Khaita instructor. She is also a founding member of the contemporary dance company subsTanz, based in Graz, Austria.

Copyright © 2024 Eva Leick
Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, #30, Dec. 2024
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