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 Dance Mandal Institute:
Sacred Buddhist Dance of Nepal Performance
Prajwal Vajracharya with LiAnne Takeuchi Hunt
 Sunday, August 11, 2002, 7:00 p.m.
Boise State University
Special Events Center
Sixteen Offering Dances
The Sixteen Offering Dances, otherwise known as Sodasa Lasya, are sixteen dance postures representing various musical instruments and other offerings.
The are personified as the sixteen goddesses of sensual enjoyment.
Lokesvara
Avalokisteshvara, also known as Chenrezig, Quan Yin, and Kanzeon, is widely beloved throughout the Buddhist world.
He embodies universal compassion in its most accessible and recognizable forms: softness, kindness and gentleness, as well as the beauty of true compassion.
Arya Tara
The role of Tara is to protect suffering beings while they are crossing the Ocean of Existence.
Arya Tara, or Green Tara, holds a blue lotus in her left hand, and blesses with her right.
Rakta Ganesh
Rakta Ganesh, the Red Ganesh is the elephant-headed protective deity to aid in the removing of obstacles.
It is wonderful to see Ganesh dancing, so light of foot, because it shows that dance is not only for the slim of body and fleet of foot, but that people of all body types are invited into the dance of worship and celebration.
Nairatma
Nairatma, the egoless yogini and a fully enlightened female Buddha, is the source of all creation, the formless infinite reality form which all visible forms arise.
Nairatma is another name for sunyata, or emptiness and selflessness.
Her blue body signifies the emptiness of the sky.
Singhamukhi
Singhamukhi is the lion-faced female Buddha.
She demonstrates that enlightenment is not a passionless state, but rather a state of wholeness in which one has access to all the energies and capacities of one's being.
Vajrayogini
Vajrayogini is the main female Buddha.
She is represented as bright red, dancing joyfully, without shame or fear and glorifying in her femaleness.
She personifies the feminine energy pulsating at the heart of reality.
Vajrapani
Vajrapani, a wrathful Buddha, is portrayed with bloodshot eyes, and angry glare, dark blue skin, a tiger-skin garment with snakes wrapping around his body, and jewelry made of bones and skulls.
Wrathful deities dance upon the negative forces they have overcome and laugh with glee as they feast on the raw painful negativity that unenlightened beings regard as frightening demons.
Workshop
Tuesday, August 13, 2002, 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Komyozan Dojo
1922 N 21st Street, Boise
Preregistration is required call: 922-1201
The sacred dance of the Tantric priests of Nepal is a dynamic yogic discipline whose goals are yogic mastery of the body, refinement of the emotions, and deepened spiritual awareness.
This workshop introduces the theory and style of movement, with the emphasis on dance as a meditation practice and vehicle of physical and spiritual healing.
Participants will be guided through basic movements and dance sequences that allow them to experience the subtle transformative power of this graceful dance form.
Topics include sacred gestures and their meaning, visualizing energy, yoga, patterns and deities, and understanding the body as a mandala and vehicle for transformation of awareness.
Learning this unique dance is a rare opportunity for anyone interested in healing arts, sacred movement, Buddhism, or Asian disciplines.
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