Sonam Tshedzom Tingkhye
Returning
Returning untangles the adaptive nature of the Tibetan identity and explores how one preserves culture in a time where media saturation attempts to homogenize us. Moving through past experience, present feelings, and hopes for the future, the work fantasizes the recovery and healing of homeland. Ultimately, it imagines the return to a free Tibet.
Photo by Michelle Smith-Lewis
Sonam Tshedzom Tingkhye (she/her) is a Tibetan-American artist working in dance performance, choreography, film, and installation. Originally from Seattle, WA, she trained at the Creative Dance Center with Anne Green Gilbert, and received her BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance from The Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2022. Movement and media form the visual components of Tshedzom's work as she investigates states that bring change and focus. She trains in various contemporary dance practices, and her artistic vocabulary draws on Odissi Indian Classical dance, and Tibetan dance and music. She is fueled by the desire to understand how the Dharma can be applied in this industrial-driven society. As part of the innate responsibility of being Tibetan, she creates as a method of preservation, centering homeland, culture, and philosophy. She is pulled towards research, both in self-directed and company projects. Tshedzom has worked with Marina Abramović, Fox Whitney, Alice Gosti, Skye Hughes, Wade Madsen, The Merce Cunningham Trust, Pacific MusicWorks, and HYBRIDMOTION Dance Theatre. She currently works with Boston Early Music Festival and Motlee Party. Her creations have been presented with the Rubin Museum of Art, Velocity Dance Center, Brooklyn Museum, The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Dance on Camera, Kaleidoscope Dance Company, Northwest Film Forum, and Tibet Film Festival.
