Backtrack to Friday. We woke up really early and went to the Sherab Ling monastery, which is about an hour and a half away, to watch a ritual dance where monks become gods and then vanquish an evil spirit in effigy to protect everyone for the coming new year.
We got there, there was some type of warm up act (of course) and we had tea and capse (obviously) and then they began. They rolled out huge statues of the protector deities, and then little monks in costumes ran around, then the big processional began. All the gods you see below came out two at a time and danced. Finally each of them used a weapon on the spirit (shown below).
Their costumes are ABSOLUTELY beautiful. There were probably thirty of them dancing around the room.
Then the STAG came out to dance around.
(video upload)
Finally, he killed the weakened evil spirit. I showed the video to my host dad, who said that we clearly didn't have an expert stag dancer, but third time's the charm. He took a long time to kill the spirit. Skip to around 2:30 in the video.
(sidenote: there is supposed to be another video here, but it's taking FOREVER and a half and I can't sit here anymore because I don't even have April to talk to anymore. If you're in Europe this is a great time to talk to me.)
Then the monks put katas on all of the gods and the statues and eventually all the gods had a backwards processional back into their lair. The whole thing was really moving and the air was electric. My favorite parts were all of the dancing (so energetic!) and the horn after the stag finally destroyed the spirit. Those horns have an AWESOME sound. I also have some close up pictures of the costumes and stuff but I don't want to break the internet.
We got there, there was some type of warm up act (of course) and we had tea and capse (obviously) and then they began. They rolled out huge statues of the protector deities, and then little monks in costumes ran around, then the big processional began. All the gods you see below came out two at a time and danced. Finally each of them used a weapon on the spirit (shown below).
Their costumes are ABSOLUTELY beautiful. There were probably thirty of them dancing around the room.
Then the STAG came out to dance around.
(video upload)
Finally, he killed the weakened evil spirit. I showed the video to my host dad, who said that we clearly didn't have an expert stag dancer, but third time's the charm. He took a long time to kill the spirit. Skip to around 2:30 in the video.
(sidenote: there is supposed to be another video here, but it's taking FOREVER and a half and I can't sit here anymore because I don't even have April to talk to anymore. If you're in Europe this is a great time to talk to me.)
Then the monks put katas on all of the gods and the statues and eventually all the gods had a backwards processional back into their lair. The whole thing was really moving and the air was electric. My favorite parts were all of the dancing (so energetic!) and the horn after the stag finally destroyed the spirit. Those horns have an AWESOME sound. I also have some close up pictures of the costumes and stuff but I don't want to break the internet.
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