Cham is a masked dance tradition preserved mainly within the Himalayan cultural sphere, especially as part of religious rituals in Buddhist monasteries in Bhutan and Tibet.
It is most often performed during temple festivals known as Tsechu, and the dancers are typically monks or dedicated practitioners.
The purpose of this dance is not to “entertain” spectators but to serve as an offering to sacred beings and to nature itself. Each movement symbolizes prayers, purification, gratitude, and vows of coexistence, and the performance is conducted with solemnity as a ritual imbued with deep religious meaning.
The dancers usually wear ritual costumes along with masks representing deities, buddhas, or spirits. By donning the mask, the dancer’s individual identity is temporarily dissolved, allowing them to embody a being beyond the self.
This is encapsulated in the traditional saying: “Behind the mask, one ceases to be human and becomes the wind, the earth, and nature itself.”
The choreography often involves circular rotations, which are sometimes interpreted as embodying a mandala. Through movements evoking the roar of fire, the heaving of the earth, the flow of rivers, and the spirals of wind, the dance manifests the forces of the cosmos. It conveys not only a visual spectacle but also a visceral, bodily sense of unity with nature.