Yarkyi Festival

TIPA as an institution is highly focused on celebrating and promoting the Tibetan religion and culture in India. Owing to this, the cultural training institution organizes the Yarkyi Festival to promote the Tibetan culture and highlight the rich vibrance of the Tibetan musical heritage among people. The festival occurs on an annual basis and is essentially the anniversary date of the formation of TIPA.

This particular festival transpires in the summer months and was initially started in Kalimpong, back on August 11, 1959. It is an internal competition where participants from two houses compete, specifically Ngonpa and Gyalu. The names of these houses come from two famous characters in Tibetan Opera and dance. Both of the groups separately research the folk dances of Tibet. Later, they come up with one solo and one group song each that they have to perform for the competition.

How it is Celebrated

The prominent manner in which the Yarkyi Festival is celebrated is as a cultural competition. The TIPA students from Ngonpa and Gyalu houses participate in the festival. Each group comes up with two songs as well as two dances based on traditional Tibetan teachings of folk dance and music. In the musical segment, they decide on two songs for the solo and group categories. Generally, a total of fifty artists take part. The artists take one month to research the traditional Tibetan arts and come up with their setlist. They do not take instructors’ help; the participants write, compose, and choreograph all of their materials based on the research. Moreover, in the case of costumes, they need to come up with a design and obtain said items on their own.

Usually, the budget for the festival covers around Rs. 7 Lakhs. Through Tibet Fundraising, the officials manage to acquire Rs. 5 Lakhs of donation. All the funds are handled and ratified by the CTA and other Chartered Accountants.

Besides that, the organizing board raises money through contributions from the general public as well. They manage this collection via Crowdfunding in India on the date of the competition; the estimated amount that is generated is Rs. 2 Lakhs.

All of these are estimated figures based on the 2019 budget of the festival.