Audio-Video
Presenting more than 8,000 video and audio items from life in Tibet and the Himalayas.
Learn About Audio-Video
Audio-video collections group together video and audio by theme or topic. Transcripts let you read along as you watch, or see translations of audio or video. Most audio and video are connected to related subjects, places, or terms so you can discover more. Search filters allow you to narrow results by collection, subject, place, or term.
Explore Audio-Video
Audio-video collections group together video and audio by theme or topic. Transcripts let you read along as you watch, or see translations of audio or video. Most audio and video are connected to related subjects, places, or terms so you can discover more. Search filters allow you to narrow results by collection, subject, place, or term.
Featured Audio-Video Collections
Oral Cultures of Bhutan
Conducted between 2013-2018, the project documented with audio-video recording imperiled oral, intangible, and embodied traditions of Bhutanese cultural heritage. The results constitute the Bhutan Cultural Library, one of the most comprehensive intangible cultural heritage-focused projects in the country. Funded by Arcadia, this is a partnership of University of Virginia and Shejun Agency for Bhutan’s Cultural Documentation and Research (Loden Foundation).
Luru Festival
Each year, communities in cultural Amdo join to make offerings and perform rituals to appease the local deities. When properly propitiated, the deities are believed to protect villagers from inclement weather, ill health, and other obstacles. Yidam, a cultural documentarian, recorded a series of videos that detail how a group of 75 villages in Mepa (Repgong) conducted their Luru in 2019.
Gabu Village Cham
Every year, the community temple of Gabu (rka phug) village in Chentsa (Mahlo TAP) hosts several days of ritual dances. Over the week preceding the festival, tantric practitioners gather in the temple, pray, and make vases full of mani pills as preparation. Among the dances performed are the Norbu Gakhyil, Trowo and Tromo, and Appeasing Demons and Nagas, before events conclude with a distribution of the offerings. The February 2016 events were recorded by cultural documentarian Kalwangjyid.
Featured Audio-Video
The Beautiful White Conch from Central Tibet
A folk song celebrating the beauty of traditional ornaments, such as turquoise and coral, that Tibetans wear as adornments.
Jangsarbu Temple: An Account
Longtime caretaker Ap Nyimchu narrates the history of this temple–and three important objects within–found in Paro, Bhutan.
A Female Deity Tashi Tsheringma
The head of a monastic school describes the significance of a longevity deity in locals’ lives.
An Account of Melog Ritual
Village elder Adu Tshering Doya describes the importance of his community’s annual obstacle-removing ritual.
Tongue Twister in the Kheng Language
Rinchen Drakpa of Zhemgang, Bhutan demonstrates his incredible dexterity with the local language, Khengkha, by sharing two tongue twisters.