The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
TibetFest returns to fairgrounds, first since 2018
GOSHEN — Michelle Weik was studying a textbook about world cultures in a social studies class in 1966, and came upon a photo of a nomad riding a pony on the vast Tibetan plateau.
A sixth-grader in a Bantam School, Weik couldn't take her eyes away from that photo.
“I thought to myself, I wonder what it's like there,” she said.
The East Morris resident read everything she could about Tibet, and in 1994 spent six weeks in and around Tibet, witnessing “the oppression, the bullet holes in the walls surrounding monasteries, and buildings that were in ruin,” she said.
Nearly four decades after seeing that nomad's photograph, she organized the first of eight cultural events she calls TibetFest, featuring traditional Tibetan dance and music, food and handicrafts, speakers and more. TibetFest 9 will take place June 25 and 26 at Goshen Fairgrounds.
Profits this year will benefit the Tibetan American Community of Connecticut, a nonprofit organization that its website says strives “to preserve and promote the ancient cultures and traditions of Tibet.”
Located on the north side of the Himalayas, Tibet is north of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. It occupies much of the Tibetan Plateau, which includes Mount Everest, the world's highest peak at more than 29,000 feet above sea level.
The first two TibetFests were held at White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield in 2005 and 2006, Weik said. Since then, it has been held at Goshen Fairgrounds. Because of COVID-19 and other factors, the last TibetFest was held in 2018.
“We will have a monk coming from Arkansas to create the sand mandala,” she said.
The monk, Geshe Thupten Dorjee, is an assistant clinical professor at the University of Arkansas. A
mandala is a multicolored geometric configuration of symbols, often taking several days or weeks to complete. It is then ritualistically dismantled to symbolize the Buddhist belief in the transitory nature of life, she explained.
Tibet has long struggled to achieve independence from China, and in the past the TibetFest events have supported organizations working toward that goal. In 2018, the event was sponsored by Students for a Free Tibet, a grassroots organization working for “Tibetans' fundamental right to political freedom,” according to its website.
In past years, TibetFest has entertained guest dancers, musicians and artists from Canada, the U.S., Switzerland, Australia and other places. This year, because of a growing Tibetan population in resettlement clusters in Connecticut, “We are relying on the Tibetan association in Connecticut for most of the traditional song and dance,” she said.
“West Haven and Old Saybrook are two of the first settlement clusters in the U.S.,” Weik said. “I think Old Saybrook started with two Tibetans, and I think now the population of Tibetans in Connecticut is 500 or more.”
She said there are 16 resettlement clusters in the U.S., the largest being in Queens, N.Y., with about 10,000 Tibetans.
“Whatever profits we have made we direct it back into the culture, whether it's an orphanage or a monastery or an organization that supports the cause,” she said. One year the event supported the Do Ngak Kunphen Ling Tibetan Buddhist Center for Universal Peace in Redding, which works “to create enlightened world citizens who work to end the suffering of all beings,” its website states.
“Each year I switch it up and send money to different organizations,” Weik said. “I just spread it out. But because there are so many Tibetans in Connecticut now, they are in need of their own cultural center. For a lot of their holidays, they have to rent a hall in Old Saybrook or Norwich or they go to New York City, where there's a large community center. They're hoping to purchase property or build a community center of their own.”
In addition to music, dance, food, handicrafts and the creation of a sand mandala, TibetFest 9 will feature an artist who paints thangkas, religious images of deities and Buddhist teachings. There will also be demonstrations of butter sculpture, a 400-yearold tradition that often marks the Tibetan New Year, Losar. Like the sand mandala, butter sculptures are ephemeral, symbolizing impermanence.
Reiki master Ed Cleveland, of Manchester, will demonstrate sound and meditation therapy with gongs and singing bowls.
The keynote speaker will be Jamyang Norbu, a Tibetan political activist, historian and author of several books and essays, including a 1999 pastiche titled “The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes.”
TibetFest 9 will take place at Goshen Fairgrounds, 116 Old Middle St./Route 63, Goshen, June 25 from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and June 26 from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Cost is $10 for adults, $5 for students and free for ages 5 and under. Volunteers are needed. If interested, call Michelle Weik at 860-5323189.