Softcover, 229 pages, color illustrations, Arcidosso 2024, new
From 2011 until his death in 2018, Namkhai Norbu collected around 400 modern Tibetan songs and approved 240 dances to them as part of the Khaita archive. While some of the dances are based on the original choreographies of the music videos by the Tibetan artists, some have been purposefully created for Khaita under the consideration of the meaning of the Tibetan song texts. Khaita is primarily practiced by students of Namkhai Norbu within the International Dzogchen Community, yet is open to anyone interested, with or without affiliation to the community and is danced all around the world. In this regard, Khaita can be considered a translocal, even cosmopolitan practice. While being shared by people from all around the world and thus transcultural, Khaita at the same time refers to and establishes aspects of Tibetan culture. Namkhai Norbu thereby explicitly promoted Khaita as a practice to support Tibetan culture while opening it to non-Tibetan practitioners.
Eva Leick