Published by: World Tibet Network News, Monday, Jun 10, 1996

by Garret Condon

Courant Staff Writer

The Hartford Courant, Saturday, June 8, 1996

The politics of the Land of the Snows have drifted to the University of Connecticut, prompting a change in a concert of Tibetan song and dance planned for the fall.

UConn's Jorgensen Auditorium planned to present a Chinese government-sanctioned troupe called the National Song and Dance Ensemble of Tibet on Oct. 6. The Jorgensen brochure, which was mailed out weeks ago, described the "folk, temple and palace" traditions that would be on display as well as "separate prayer ceremonies of Buddhist monks."

The problem, according to local residents sympathetic to the government-in-exile of the Dalai Lama in India, is that the Chinese government is suppressing Tibetan culture and religion in Tibet. A number of international human rights groups, including Amnesty International have protested recent crackdowns against Buddhist monks and nuns and the ban against photographs of the Dalai Lama. The Chinese government has denied the charge in international forums (chinese troops first occupied Tibet in 1950. In the midst of an anti-Chinese uprising, the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959.)

"It is trying to put a happy face on very severe human rights abuses," says Tim Wolf of West Hartford. Wolf, a Buddhist in the Tibetan tradition, is director of special programs for state Senate Democrats. As co-director (with Linda Pagani, his wife) of the now-defunct International Performing Arts Festival, he brought a number of Tibetan groups to the area. Wolf initiated a letter-writing campaign to get UConn to cancel the performance.

The 22 letters UConn received caused university officials to take a second look at the troupe, according to Karen Grava Williams, director of communications. Other planned tour sites across the country also got letters, according to Williams.

The agency that booked the tour, Columbia Artists Management of New York, has now replaced the original group with the Tibetan Institute for the Performing Arts, which is sanctioned by the Dalai Lama.

In a June 4 fax to UConn, Andrew S. Grossman, senior vice president of Columbia Artists, confirmed that the TIPA group would be coming to UConn Oct.6.

Neither Grossman nor others at Columbia returned repeated telephone calls for further information on the tour, which, according to Grossman's fax, will be co-sponsored by Tibet House, a New York-based organization dedicated to the preservation of Tibetan culture.

Submitted by Bhuchung K. Tsering, ICT