An Afternoon of Tibetan Culture

UC Berkeley will host an art history lecture and Tibetan musical performance in conjunction with its Himalayan art exhibit.

Robert W. Clark, Stanford University
Techung (Tashi Dhondup), Tibetan musician

In conjunction with the current exhibit of Himalayan art at the Berkeley Art Museum ("Realm of Enlightenment: Masters and Teachers from the Land of Snows"), an art history lecture and Tibetan musical performance will be held at the Museum. 

Techung will perform traditional and sacred Tibetan songs accompanied by the damnyen, a Tibetan stringed instrument, and the lingbu, the Tibetan bamboo flute. He will also perform his own compositions. As part of the program, Techung will discuss music as a way of life for Tibetans and as a deep expression of Himalayan culture. Among his several recordings, Techung has recently released Semshae-Heart Songs, an album of Tibetan children’s music that he hopes will “help preserve the Tibetan language and compassionate culture through children’s music.”

Following the performance, at 3 pm in the Museum Theater, renowned scholar of Tibetan culture and language Robert W. Clark will discuss the history of Buddhism as it spread from India across the Himalaya and into Tibet, using the significant cultural and religious objects in Himalayan Pilgrimage as illustrations. Dr. Clark, who is on the faculty at Stanford University, is program director of Tardo Ling, a center for translation of Tibetan literature. He has published extensively on Tibetan, Nepalese, and Indian Buddhist art, history, and culture, and curated numerous exhibitions of Tibetan and Buddhist art. Dr. Clark has served as translator in the Private Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and is currently working on a major study of Buddhist culture in Tibet and India in the twentieth century.