(no subject)

[felicula]

I tried to convince my mom to bring Aidan to see the lamas working on the mandala Sunday, but my mom made excuses. She's regretting it now.

Anyhow, we got on campus relatively early for the production of Sacred Music, Sacred Dance by the lamas of The Mystical Arts of Tibet. These are the same lamas who worked on the mandala. In fact, the gallery where they were working was our first stop of the day. We also grabbed lunch on campus, and I procured a ticket to the interfaith ceremony on Monday afternoon.

The crowd in the UB Center for the Arts was much, much thicker than it was on Saturday. The public sand table and its practice mandala was now filled. We tried to find a queue to wait for the Mainstage Theatre to open up, but the crowd was jumbled.

Once in, we found our seats were in the back left of the theatre. That was OK. We'd seen the lamas up close and personal during the mandala consecration ceremony.

The Sacred Music, Sacred Dance production was longer and much more varied. It began with an Invocation of the Forces of Goodness that was similar to what mechanchaos and I had already experienced. They did a ritual to Purify the Environment and its Inhabitants in which the entire audience and the surrounding area was reflected in a mirror, then sacred water of wisdom was poured on the mirror for purification of all that had been reflected within. They repeated the Dance of the Black Hat Masters. Then, they put on a demonstration of the style of debate used in the monastery.

The first act ended with the show-stopping Snow Lion Dance. Two monks in a furry white Snow Lion suit trotted about, jumped, and worked wonderfully in unison to bring to life the snow lion for us. Everyone smiled wide as the snow lion curled up in the middle of the stage in a sleepy, catlike ball of fur, then scratched playfully. The team even jumped from the stage to the space in front of the first row, accosting the audience members seated there. At the end, the snow lion's mouth opened, a banner reading "World Peace" unfurling from within. I wish I'd gotten Aidan a ticket to this solely on the basis of this dance.

After intermission, we got to see the Dance of the Skeleton Lords. Tibetan Buddhist culture speaks to the inner goth in us all. What's more fun than a pair of dancing skeletons! Other than a dancing snow lion, that is... They gave a demonstration of a more melodic style of chanting that was not multiphonic in A Melody to Sever the Ego Syndrome. Then the lamas performed the Dance of the Celestial Travelers. They finished out the program with the Auspicious Song for World Healing in which they burned incence, chanted, and played their instruments.

When we left the theatre, we filed back into the gallery where a solitary lama began to work steadily at adding detail to the mandala. The crowd pressed in, so mechanchaos and I decided to head to our next destination.