This is a video celebrating the rich culture heritage of Tibet. Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts, Dharamshala in full swing during the "Rare Folk forms Tibet's three provinces of Dotoe, Domey and U-Tang" organized by SPIC MACAY (Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth) under the theme "Dances from the Roof of the World", at Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Center, 19th Nov. 2011.

S H A N A K: (Masked Spiritual Dance) The black hat dance is an elaborated ritual, which takes many days to perform in Tibet. The purpose of this ritual is to eliminate and hinder the obstacles to happiness, which in the individuals are the afflictive emotions & misconception that cause sufferings.

At the beginning of the dance, the Black hat Dancers make symbolic offerings of Gold Libation (Black tea) to the linage Lamas, tutelary deities (different forms of the Buddha's) & Dharmapalas (Truth protectors) in order to please them & to receive their blessings. Then the dancers invite the Dharmapalas' consorts & their retinues to join them. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Dharamapalas & their consorts usually appear in wrathful form.

They exhibit this fierce aspect in order to tame the dilute minds of sentient beings by hatred, greed & ignorance. They are not motivated by anger, but by supreme love & compassion.

This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at rupindang [at] gmail [dot] com and [email protected]