Tibetan Ensemble Showcases Its Homeland’s Traditions

In perhaps the most varied and accessible sampling of Tibetan culture ever seen in this country, the 55-member Song and Dance Ensemble from the Dalai Lama-established Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts appeared on the Spectrum series at USC on Tuesday, en route to other Southland engagements.

These are artists-in-exile: From their base in Dharamsala, India, they keep alive the traditions of their occupied homeland, now ruled by Beijing. However, the splendor of their costumes easily matches anything you can see in China’s Tibet, while the sweet fervor of their performing style belongs to nobody else.

Folk virtuosity seemed the dominant concept of the two-hour program in Bovard Auditorium, but the company also twice made room for five of the world-famous Gyuto monks to present passages of sublime, deep-toned Buddhist chant accented with drum, cymbals and bells--along with horns taller than the men who played them.

At the opposite extreme: “Ralpa,” an anything-but-contemplative gypsy dance from eastern Tibet in which five women played and spun hand drums while five men executed so many spectacular squat kicks and barrel turns that you half suspected a troupe of Moiseyev dancers had become lost in the Himalayas and were then adopted by the local population.

In the Buddhist ritual “Shanak,” or “Black Hat Dance,” four men wearing layers of embroidered silks and sculptural headdresses hopped into long-held balances--their hands pushing away from their shoulders as if holding evil at bay--then accelerated into a sequence of air turns marked by sudden changes of direction. “Dranyen Shapdro” featured four men simultaneously singing, dancing and playing serpentine lutes, their heavy boot-stamping and vigorous strumming giving their songs an endearing earthiness.

Opera excerpts included “Tashi Shoelpa,” with five dancers in yellow masks and white beards dynamically leaping, kicking and whirling their carved wooden wands, plus “Yaktse,” in which a nomad woman mimed making yak butter with the cooperation of two shaggy beasts. Besides its other pleasures, the evening represented a living museum of dazzling headgear--everything from pancake-style simplicity to improbable pileups of hoops, straps, tassels, beads, fringe, fur, gold, gems and human skulls. Maybe it was Flo Ziegfeld who got lost in the Himalayas.

* The Song and Dance Ensemble performs Friday and Saturday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. $10-$45. (800) 300-4345.