Tsering Wangmo Satho
Tsering Wangmo Satho | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1967 India |
| Alma mater | Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts |
| Occupations |
|
| Awards | National Heritage Fellowship (2022) |
Tsering Wangmo Satho (born 1967) is a Tibetan dancer and opera singer based in the United States. She is a co-founder and artistic director Chaksam-pa, a Tibetan dance and opera troupe.
Biography[edit]
Tsering Wangmo Satho was born in 1967 in a Tibetan refugee camp in India.[1] She was inspired by seeing other elder Tibetan singers and dancers, including her mother Bhalu Satho, a folk singer from the southeastern Kongpo region.[2][3] she studied at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts.[1] She performed at the 1989 Texas Folklife Festival, her first appearance in the United States, and later successfully applied for a O-1B visa to remain in the country.[1][2]
Wangmo Satho moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where in 1989, she and other artists associated with the TIPA co-founded Chaksam-pa, a Tibetan dance and opera troupe, later becoming the organization's artistic director.[1][2] In 2006, she released a CD, Forbidden Voice.[2] In 2011, Chaksam-pa's production of The Religious King Norsang at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, California was the first full North American lhamo performance with master artists.[1] She also started the Tibetan Cultural Preservation Project in 1995,[1] and in 2020, Chaksam-pa released Songs of Kongpo, her project on collecting hundreds of Kongpo folk songs from her mother's memories.[1][3]
In June 2022, Wangmo Satho was announced as one of the year's ten National Heritage Fellows.[4][5] The National Endowment for the Arts noted that her "impact as a Tibetan traditional artist is felt across the diaspora and illuminates the beauty and power of Tibetan arts and culture on an international scale".[1]
Wangmo Satho is also a leader in the Tibetan-American community in the Bay Area. She ran a Tibetan restaurant in San Francisco named Lhasa Moon and collaborated on a 1998 cookbook named The Lhasa Moon Tibetan Cookbook.[2] She also teaches Tibetan language education, having done so in the Bay Area since 1989.[1][2] She was previously the vice-president of the Tibetan Association of Northern California.[1]
Wangmo Satho is based in Richmond, California.[2]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Tsering Wangmo Satho". www.arts.gov. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g Kharrazi, Lily (July 22, 2022). "Celebrating California's Newest National Heritage Fellow, Tsering Wangmo Satho". ACTA News. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
- ^ a b "Songs of Kongpo". Chaksampa. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
- ^ "National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2022 NEA National Heritage Fellows". National Endowment for the Arts. June 28, 2022. Retrieved June 29, 2022.
- ^ Lhamo, Choekyi (June 30, 2022). "Tibetan artist among National Heritage Fellowship recipients of 2022". Phayul. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
- 1967 births
- Living people
- Musicians from Richmond, California
- 21st-century Tibetan women singers
- 20th-century American dancers
- 21st-century American dancers
- American dancers of Asian descent
- Tibetan emigrants to the United States
- Dancers from California
- Singers from California
- 20th-century American women opera singers
- 21st-century American women opera singers
- National Heritage Fellowship winners