Concert Still Shines a Light on Tibetan Culture

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By BEN SISARI

Published: February 24, 2010

In 1988 when Tibet House US, a cultural organization in New York, held its first benefit concert, things were not looking good for the Tibetan homeland. It had been under Chinese occupation for four decades, and the Dalai Lama, its spiritual leader, had been in exile for three.

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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

The composer Philip Glass at Tibet House US, a beneficiary of a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall.

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On Friday at Carnegie Hall, Tibet House will present its 20th benefit, and things still don’t look so good for Tibet. Riots erupted there as China prepared for the 2008 Olympic Games. Last week the Dalai Lama, who is still in exile, met with President Obama, but in a concession to the Chinese government the meeting was semiprivate; the Dalai Lama left the White House through a back door, near piles of garbage bags.
Many would view these as discouraging signs. But for Robert A. F. Thurman, a professor of Indo-Tibetan studies at Columbia University who helped found Tibet House, the cause is as strong as ever.
“The Tibetans are like the Na’vi,” Professor Thurman said, alluding with a chuckle to “Avatar,” James Cameron’s science-fiction epic. “They’re hanging in there. Maybe not fighting with bows and arrows, but they are staying connected to nature, and we think they will prevail.”
After two decades the Tibet House concerts, held at Carnegie since 1994, have developed into an institution of their own, shining a light each year on the urgency of preserving Tibetan culture and offering music fans starry, varied lineups. Past participants have included David Bowie, Moby, R.E.M., John Cale and Vampire Weekend. Friday’s concert will include Philip Glass — another Tibet House co-founder, who puts together the concerts each year — along with Patti Smith,Iggy Pop, Gogol Bordello, Regina Spektor, Bajah & the Dry Eye Crew, Pierce Turner and Tenzin Kunsel.
When the concerts began, Mr. Glass said in an interview at Tibet House’s headquarters in Manhattan, Tibet was far below the radar of most Americans, and Tibetan refugees had trouble assimilating into American society. “You had men who had spent their lives studying religious texts wrapping packages at Macy’s,” he said.
Since then the Tibetan cause has become a regular topic of American public discourse, and the Dalai Lama a familiar face around the world. In 1989 he won the Nobel Peace Prize and is now a regular presence in the mainstream news media; this week he was interviewed on NPR and on “Larry King Live” on CNN. He may be dressed in robes and sandals, but his organization is tech-savvy: on Monday an official Dalai Lama Twitteraccount began sending out regular news updates.
The concerts, which celebrate the Tibetan New Year (Feb. 14 this year), raise $100,000 to $250,000 each year, according to Tibet House, a nonprofit group founded at the Dalai Lama’s request in 1987. Most of that money supports Tibet House, but some of it is also sent to other Tibetan groups in the United States.
As Professor Thurman sees it, the visibility of the concerts and the Dalai Lama’s example of nonviolence have drawn worldwide sympathy for the Tibetan cause and put pressure on the Chinese government to reconcile.
“The Chinese desperately need spirituality,” he said. “They would benefit from the Dalai Lama’s representations and his walking the talk of Buddhist ethics. So as a peacemaker and as a religious leader he likes to have a hand in China.”
Mr. Glass is not as sanguine about the political solution, and he points out that the mission of Tibet House is strictly cultural. Its small office is filled with centuries-old tapestries and contemporary paintings and sculptures that have been donated by artists and collectors. Ganden Thurman, Tibet House US’s executive director and a son of Robert Thurman, said the organization relied on donations from artists and collectors because corporations eager for Chinese trade are often skittish about publicly supporting a Tibetan cause. (Tibet House is a Thurman family enterprise: Professor Thurman’s wife, Nena, and one of his daughters, the actress Uma Thurman, are on its board.)
Instead, Mr. Glass said the concerts represented the survival of Tibetan culture in a changed world and its gradual embrace as part of the fabric of American society.
“It might be a slightly cruel thing to say,” he said, “but we’ve been the beneficiaries of an exiled community, as we have been with the Italians, and with the Ukrainians, or the Jewish people, or the African cultures that came here through slavery. America is a very dynamic and vital place and partly because of our ability to absorb these kinds of things.”
The concerts “began as a kind of beacon — ‘Here we are, don’t forget us,’ ” he added. “Now it’s like a celebration of a culture which is surviving in a way no one expected it would.”