In the Xizang autonomous region, a song does not always begin on a stage. It may begin in a village, where an old musician remembers a melody that has traveled from one generation to the next. It can start with the sound of a traditional string instrument being played against wood, the gentle breath of a flute in a classroom, or the memories of a young musician who has spent years collecting songs from remote villages. It can even start with something as simple as a drumstick and the warm smell of freshly baked bread.
For a band from Lhasa called Dora, it can begin anywhere.
The name Dora carries several meanings in the Tibetan language: a stage; a performance space; a spiritual land or utopia; or a place of happiness.
"Any place where sincere hearts, happiness and joy gather, they say, can be called Dora," says Tenzin Yeshe, a 33-year-old performer of the dranyan (or dramnyen), a long-necked, six-stringed musical instrument, who is also a researcher of Tibetan Opera and an inheritor of its intangible cultural heritage.
That idea has become the quiet philosophy of this five-member ensemble. Dora is not simply a band but a meeting place between generations, tradition and experiment, village and city, and the rituals of an ancient musical culture and the restless possibilities of a modern stage, as Tenzin Yeshe puts it.
"And, perhaps most importantly, between people who have chosen to keep making music together," Tenzin Yeshe adds.
This August, Dora travels from Lhasa to six cities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen of Guangdong province, and Chengdu of Sichuan province, on a national tour. From Aug 8 to 27, across livehouses, concert halls and theaters, the band hopes to build a small passage from the urban present to the high plateau, two hours at a time.
The story of Dora begins with a concert that never happened.
The local government of Lhasa planned to hold a music event, and Pasang Tsering was called because the former dancer-choreographer knew musicians.
Dawa Tsering, a veteran musician that Pasang Tsering had known for more than two decades, joined the group. Tenzin Yeshe, whom he had known for more than a decade, also joined. So did young musician Karma Tashi Chunjor. They rehearsed. Then they rehearsed again.
The concert, however, was eventually shelved when the project changed direction. That could have been the end of the story. Instead, something rather interesting happened. The musicians did not want to stop. They had discovered that they enjoyed being together.
"The chemistry was there. The music was there. And, most importantly, there was a feeling that this temporary ensemble had somehow become a real band. So we kept it together," recalls Pasang Tsering, who plays Tibetan Opera drum.
The band was eventually called Dora in 2019.
Tenzin Yeshe came up with the name, inspired by traditional Tibetan Opera that fascinated him as a child.
"My grandmother took me to see Tibetan O
pera. While other children wandered off to play, I stayed. I would pick up a branch from the ground and imitate the actors' movements, turning the stick into an imaginary prop and the open space into a stage," recalls Tenzin Yeshe, who graduated from Minzu University of China with a major in Tibetan language and literature and a master's degree in Tibetology.
According to Tenzin Yeshe, Tibetan Opera has a distinctive relationship between performer and audience. The boundary between the two can be fluid; spectators may sing, dance, and participate alongside the performers. He wants his band to re-create that openness.
"I hope our performances can break down the barrier between stage and audience," he says, describing his wish for audiences and musicians to sing and dance together.
Besides adapting Tibetan folk songs into new versions, Dora has been creating original material with roots in Tibetan ethnic culture.
For example, the two songs Iron Chain Bridge and The Ironmaking Song grew out of a 2019 immersive theater production about Thangtong Gyalpo, the legendary Tibetan master associated with the founding of Tibetan Opera. He is also known for constructing numerous iron bridges across the challenging terrains of Xizang, which facilitated trade and enhanced connectivity among remote communities.
The Ironmaking Song combines the rhythmic language of the national intangible cultural heritage of Tibetan Opera with rap-like vocals. Iron Chain Bridge uses layers of human voices and folk musical instruments to evoke the physical force of collective ironmaking — the sound of many people working together.
"The history is old, but our musical language is not," says Tenzin Yeshe, who co-wrote the song with Pasang Tsering.
One of Dora's newest songs is called, with disarming directness, Please, Don't Marry Your Daughter to Someone Else. The song tells a comical story about a young man pleading with the father of the woman he loves to allow him to marry her. The inspiration came from an unlikely place: the young daughter of the general manager of the bakery shop that Pasang Tsering owns and where Dora rehearses regularly.
"Someone made a joke during rehearsal. The joke became a melody. The melody became a song. The song became part of the band's performance," says Pasang Tsering, 56.
Karma Tashi Chunjor, 28, is the youngest member of the band. He comes from Ngari prefecture, a region of vast landscapes and deep musical traditions. After graduating, he returned home, where he began traveling through counties and villages to meet folk musicians and collect local songs.
Every year, he makes time to return to the countryside. He calls himself a song collector.
Among the musical treasures he has encountered is a local form of dranyan, which is smaller with a brighter, sharper tone.
Such details are easy to overlook in the rush toward a polished stage performance. Dora is determined not to overlook them.
The band describes its approach as "respecting the source, light on adaptation".
The original melodies and lyrics are not casually rewritten. Instead, changes are concentrated in arrangement and presentation, allowing the music's original character to remain audible.
To take the old instruments onto a wider stage, the band also altered them with new materials, which allows them to adapt to different temperatures, humidity and environments far different from their hometown.
"We want people around the world to know how extraordinary these instruments are," says Karma Tashi Chunjor.
The band sees the tour as a kind of experimental laboratory. Traditional songs will encounter new audiences, and it will test newly altered instruments in real performance conditions.
The ambition is not merely to make traditional music modern, but to make the audience listen more closely.
Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn
