Drametse Ngacham

The Drametse Ngacham (meaning "mask dance of the drums from Drametse", nga means "drum" and cham means "mask dance")[1] is a sacred dance performed in the village of Drametse in eastern Bhutan.[2] It is performed twice a year during the Drametse festival, which occurs on the fifth and tenth months of the Bhutanese calendar.[2] The festival is organized by the Ogyen Tegchok Namdroel Choeling Monastery to honor Padmasambhava, an 8th-century Buddhist master.[2]

A performance of the dance features sixteen masked male dancers and ten musicians. The dancers wear monastic robes and wooden masks with features of animals, both real and mythical.[2] The musicians play "cymbals, trumpets and drums, including the bang nga, a large cylindrical drum, the lag nga, a small hand-held circular flat drum, and the nga chen, a drum beaten with a bent drumstick."[2] They first perform a prayer dance in the soeldep cham, the main shrine, before appearing one by one in the courtyard of the monastery.[2] The dance has two parts: a calm, contemplative part to represent the peaceful deities, and a rapid, athletic part for the wrathful ones.[2]

Performances of the dance have been conducted for almost five centuries.[1] In the late nineteenth century, the dance started spreading to other parts of Bhutan.[1][3] Today, it is approaching to be something of a national dance for the country, representing the identity of the Bhutanese nation.[3]

The dance was inscribed in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2008, though it was originally proclaimed in 2005.[2] The original proclamation notes "the number of practitioners is dwindling due to the lack of rehearsal time, the absence of a systematic mechanism to train and honour the dancers and musicians and the gradual decrease in interest among young people."[3]

The Institute of Language and Culture Studies at the Royal University of Bhutan coordinated and implemented a project to preserve and promote the dance.[4] The project was funded by the Japanese Funds-in-Trust for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, through UNESCO.[4][5] It involved strengthening the training capacities of the monastery, compiling existing documentation, recording videos of the dance, researching its history, and promotional activities.[5] A result of the project was a book about the dance written in English and Dzongkha and an accompanying film.[4][6]