HEMIS FESTIVAL EDITORIAL
The Hemis Festival held in the Hemis monastery, is one of the most vibrant displays of the ancient mountain culture in India. It is a spectacular sight and rich of history culture, colors and spirituality. On this popular festival in Ladakh, Cham Dance and other traditional dances are performed in Hemis Monastery on the beats of drums and cymbal and on the tunes of long pipe like Tibetan music instrument.The traditional dance wearing the masks is very slow, and complemented with calm shell sounds, rhythmic instruments, it almost feels like time has been slowed down. All the masks painted often have an enraged or menacing look, in order to strike terror into evil spirits and to chase them off, but they don’t symbolize demons. Raging masks belong to deities and, the more terrifying, the better they will keep wicked spirits at bay and let the monk focus on meditating.
