Tibetan Monk Performance
Whitaker Center, Harrisburg, PA

Back in November of 2002, I got the calendar for The Whitaker Center and saw that the Tibetan Monks of Drepung Loseling Institute were coming again in April 2003. They were going to perform the sand mandala ceremonies which largely inspired my CD "Mandala", and they were also going to perform their Sacred Music, Sacred Dance program. I immediately bought tickets because I hoped to get much better seats than the last time I saw them in Harrisburg. I also marked my calendar to attend at least part of the one-week-long mandala ceremonies.

A series of events took place between November and April that made me reconsider going to the concert. The first problem was that the concert date fell on Easter, which I was not aware of when I purchased the tickets. That conflict would potentially create a scheduling problem with my in-law's family dinner traditionally held on that day. Then there was the fact that I had grown quite involved in a new musical group (The Bodo Band), and I would need to miss a rehearsal in order to attend the Monk concert. Additional scheduling issues became apparent when I learned that the end of the mandala ceremony was taking place on Saturday night and would conclude with dumping the mandala into the Susquehanna, but given the costs involved, I could not justify driving to Harrisburg twice in one weekend.

With these conflicts in mind, I advertised my tickets for sale on a number of web sites, a local newspaper, and among friends and coworkers. Based on that experience, I'd have to say the only thing worse than trying to get good seats for a show is trying to sell good seats to an obscure show such as this. Even Buddhists that i asked were not interested. No one took me up on the offer, and I doubt I could have given the tickets away.

So, resigned to the fact that we would go to the show, rather than completely waste the tickets, we planned our travels. The Bodo Band didn't mind me taking a night off, and earlier dinner arrangements were made with my inlaws. The trip to Harrisburg actually proved useful because I needed to get passport photos made (no one locally could do them on a holiday).

We arrived well before the show, got my passport pictures at Kinkos, and then went to the Whitaker Center. This would be the second time I was seeing the Monks perform. Everything in the lobby looked much as it did last time, with merchandise tables of CDs, tapes, T-shirts, tinghsa bells, mandala drawings and other Tibetan wares.

Also in attendance were representatives from Blue Mountain Lotus Society, a meditation group with which I had been in brief contact during my last year living in Harrisburg. People flocked through the lobby, descending on the merchandise tables. Many people proceeded to the bar - an anomaly at an otherwise spiritual event.

Indeed ours were good seats: 4th row, center; 4th being the first actual row of auditorium seats (there were portable chairs set up for three rows in front of us, right to the edge of the stage, but that would have been too close). I asked about their photography policy, and was told that no flash photography was allowed, so I agreed to not use my flash.

The first disappointment of the evening was that there was no true program book for the show. There was a magazine with many advertisements from local vendors, and a list of upcoming shows with brief blurbs, but no performance-related detail to which I could refer for song titles, background info, etc. Had I taken a pen, I could have attempted to jot down the names of the pieces performed. Had I been allowed to record, I might at least have a record. So, from a musicological standpoint, the performance gave people very little to take home with them, even if the performance was well done.

The second disappointment was that the show, while well done and uplifting in many ways, was almost an exact copy of the last performance I saw. There was the black hat dance, skeleton dance snow lion dance, the yak dance, rainbow warrior dance, several overtone signing pieces of purification, the Tibetan Monk debate, percussion features and the charming introductions provided by the host whose name I can't tell you because I don't have a programme.

The mission of the Monks is three-fold: To bring about awareness of Tibet; to bring peace-offerings and healing to all cultures through their work; and to preserve their traditions by continuing to perform.

One insight that evening was that overtone signing is much better in person than on CD. Overtone signing involves very controled breathing and muscular contraction of the diaphragm, throat and vocal cords in such a way that the singer produces a chord rather than one note. Our better seats enabled me to hear the overtones much better than last time, and I enjoyed this better understanding. It also occurred to me that the dissonant, clangy and loud Tibetan percussion is pointless on CD without the context of the dances they accompany. People like our friend Eleanor are justified in not wanting to attend such performances because of perceptions based on recordings. Even a video may not be enough to convince people to attend.

There was a rather long intermission (20 minutes) during which people returned to the tables to purchase malas and prayer flags, and returned to the bar to get refills on their Riunite. Don't get me wrong, I drink occasionally, and I consider myself Buddhist (though obviously not Tibetan). But I do not drink at such events, and I feel the presence of the bar was in bad taste. The yuppie factor was quite high that night, as it has been in Harrisburg for several years now, especially on the night club scene. The state job market and numerous health care companies have dumped an increasing number of young, good looking professionals into the population. Many are looking to catch the latest craze and be as hip as they can be, whereever they find themselves, even in the sacred space created that night.

People funneled back into the auditorium, and the show continued. The announcer told a joke (which I swear I heard last time) about how the troupe lost one of their monks in Miami, and later heard from him in Las Vegas. This was just a joke, and not true. By the second to last piece, my mind was wavering. Whether it was just the long week behind me, the long week ahead, or some of the seeds of thoughts fleshed out here, I don't know. I could swear that the last piece generated tears in the two women next to me, which made me rethink whether their malas were only for show. If indeed the music did connect with them in some subconscious way, that is great. I decided that besides some rather bad pictures, that I didn't want to take anything physical home. I wasn't going to buy anything. All I needed were some memories. I may have the program from the last show, so that should be good enough.