This ritual is very unique because it is performed only by women in Ura, Bumthang District.

It is a three days ritual to please all their local deities and get blessings for good weather  and harvesting.

A group of village women from Ura will have to climb early morning to the summit of the mountain overlooking Ura to dance and invite the deities to come to the monastery for a three days celebration.

The three- day festival starts on the 10th day of the third Bhutanese month (April or May), coinciding with the anniversary of the death of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel. Sacred dances such as the Black Hat Dance, the Three Ging and the drummers of Drametse are performed.

A small thongdroel (banner “which liberates by sight”) representing the future Buddha Maitreya (Jampa) is shown on one of the days. The people of Uru and Domkhar villages in Chhume valley provide the expenses for the festival every year.

The Tibetan Lama Namkha Sumdrup came to Tang after founding Ngang lhakhang in the upper Choekhor valley of Bumthang in the 16th century.  While performing  the consecration of this temple, he saw the Tang local deity Rinchen Goenyak, who is also the cattle deity, come as a yak and danced in the courtyard. The two other great protective deities Gonmo (Lhamo) and Gonpo join him as they accompanied the lama.

Based on this, Lama Namkha Samdrup established this annual event to which all the villagers contribute to please the deities. The lama from Thowadra monastery in Tang leads the ritual, Thowadra being the residence of the local deity.

The first day is dedicated to the preparation.

On the second day, women perform folk dances in the temple after the prayers are over. In the meantime, men dressed as warriors called pazaps, climb in a long procession up to Ogyen Choeling manor to invite the lord (Choeje) to the ceremony. On their way back, they are received by the women and all come back singing to the temple ground.

The highlights of the festival are the dances of Gonpo, Gonmo (Lhamo), also called ‘Gadpo’ and ‘Gadmo’ in Tang and Rinchen Goenyak. These three deities are represented by mannequins wearing huge masks and moved by people.

The yak, also simply called Dawala by the villagers, is very popular and its wooden mask has articulate jaws which clap, and it is considered as a blessing.

Offering of rice cakes (tshogs) to the guests of honor is a very important part of the ritual. The guests have to reciprocate with money. Finally money is also offered to the deities in a ceremonial and public manner while dancing and drinking continue into the night.

The last day is a repetition of the 2nd day, minus the procession to Ogyenchoeling.

Performed in the courtyard of the Shedrup Darjay Choeling monastery of Nyimalung, it consists of dances (the Black hat dance, the Three Ging and the drummers of Drametse) and recitation of the Lama Norbu Gyamtso, a famous “treasure text” from the great saint Pema Lingpa (1450-1521).

On the 10th morning of the festival, a large (9 x12 m) appliqué banner, thongdroel, is displayed to the public on the façade of the main temple. The banner, representing Guru Rinpoche, his two consorts and his Eight Manifestations as well as other important historical and religious figures of Bhutan, was offered to the monastery by a Japanese lady. It took nine months to be completed and was consecrated in 1994

The four-day festival is being observed in honor of the deity Chador (Vajrapani) whose statue is said to have appeared miraculously in a wool container of an old woman after Guru Rinpoche visited her house in Ura village. Guru Rinpoche had come to Ura as a beggar after the villagers implored him to cure a leprosy epidemy.

This sacred statue is kept the whole year in the house of the Lama of Gadan outside the village proper. It is said that when the statue arrived at Gadan, a snake rose from the place and escaped the valley. As Vajrapani is known for subduing the subterranean beings which are believed to afflict leprosy, the villagers knew the valley was freed from the curse.

The whole community participate to the festival in different capacities: women prepare food and drinks, young girls dance, present offerings and serve alcohol, men perform the dances and rituals, play musical instruments.

The first day statue of Vajrapani is taken out of its house in Gadan and brought in procession to the old woman house in Ura village and goes back to Gadan the last day of the festival. During this time, the caretaker of the statue and a central figure of the festival is the Gadan Gathpo (“the old man of Gadan”) who is at the same time a bawdy jester and the host of the festival. With a black wrinkled mask, dressed in dark woolen cloth and waving a wooden phallus, this figure has the heavy responsability of the smooth running of the festival.

Every afternoon, there is a ritual community gathering, the choja, where tea and rice are served accompanied by traditional songs.

During three days, mask dances performed by the gomchen (religious laymen) of Ura. These include the dances of the three kinds of Ging, Pholay Molay and the dance of the Drums from Drametse as well as Raksha marcham, the dance of the Judgement of the Dead, which is on the 15th day. This dance is followed by a procession of people carrying offerings and singing around the Ura temple courtyard.
On the 16th day, the Yakchoe ends with a general blessing of the public by the statue of Vajrapani and then goes back in a procession to Gadan.

A thangka of Guru Rinpoche presented by His Majesty the 5th King in 2010 is shown on the 15th day of the festival.
The mask dances were added to the Yakchoe some 75 years ago.

The festival itself is said to have been established in the 14th century but there is no historical text so far.

The word “performing arts” is ambiguous as most of the performances are of religious nature and do not imply professional troupes.

The tradition of religious dances and plays performed by monks or male villagers at different times of the year in villages is very much alive as well as folk songs and dances performed by both women and men, either during the religious festivals or at any festive occasions.

Popular Songs and Dances

Popular songs and dances are performed during lay celebrations, at friends’ gatherings or between religious dances.

Men and women sing together or separately, and most of the time, songs are accompanied by dances where both men and women take part, either forming a line or a circle. The choreography is usually quite simple some of the steps can be tricky like sidesteps and tap dance – like steps. Graceful arm and hand gestures compliment the steps. The body remains usually upright.

In Bumthang, like in most of Bhutan, the villagers dance and sing. There are no specific professional dance troupes as such.

The language of the songs is traditionally Choeke, which derives from Classical Tibetan, using a lot of metaphors with reference to religious and natural contexts. The tunes follow the musical pentatonic scale.

Traditionally there are two styles of folk singing: the Zhungdra and Boedra. The first one, which means “the State/ Central melody”, is very solemn. It has no rhythm and uses the CDFGA tones. The second one meaning “the melody of the courtiers” has a fast rhythm and use CDEGA and CDFGA tones.

There is now a new genre of song called rigsar popularized on radio and TV, it is in the Dzongkha language and has more westernized or Bollywood inspired melodies.

Devotional songs (Gurma) were composed by great religious figures such as Milarepa, A Tibetan mystic and poet (1040-1123) or more recently, Dudjom Rinpoche (1904-1987). They are sung in Classical Tibetan, in seven or eight syllable verses. They are not accompanied by dances as they are a means of religious expression and can be sung by religious people as well as lay people of both sexes.