An 18th-century thangka.

It took a two-year trek of discovery to remote temples and monasteries in Bhutan, but Western scholars succeeded in borrowing about 110 objects and recording 330 films of ritual dances never before seen in the West. All of them will go on view in “The Dragon’s Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan” at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Punakha Dzong monastery

Bhutan is the least accessible and least known of the Himalayan countries. Unlike Nepal and Tibet, Bhutan forbids trekkers in its sacred mountains. And it has never been colonized, conquered or invaded, so its treasures have never been looted. Its art has remained almost unknown both in and outside Bhutan.

Below, the curators Stephen Little, in patterned shirt, and Ephraim Jose, second from right, examine two thangkas at the National Library in Thimphu.

The curatorial odyssey got started in the fall of 1997, when Ephraim Jose, a conservator of Asian and Himalayan art from San Francisco, became interested in organizing an exhibition after a 24-hour layover in Bhutan. A few years later he took the idea to the incoming director of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, who secured the cooperation of the Bhutanese government.

John Johnston at the Tango Monastery in Thimphu.

In 2007 John Johnston, a scholar who had also signed onto the project, visited 200 temples and monasteries — about 10 percent of the sacred sites in Bhutan — accompanied by a high-ranking monk and a representative of the royal government.

Far left, John Johnston, a former Sotheby's specialist, with monks at Tango Monastery in Thimphu, Bhutan.

“We found the best works of art through word of mouth,” Mr. Johnston recalled. “A monk would say, ‘Have you been there?’ They’d give us clues and we’d follow them.”

Dancers at the Yungdrung Choeling Palace in Bhutan's Trongsa District in May 2007.

Meanwhile Joseph Houseal, a choreographer and dance preservationist, investigated Bhutanese cham dances, and noninvasive ways to record them. “People came to trust us, and they let us see secret things,” he said. “We revived four dances and saved one from extinction that was only known to one person in his 80s.”

The organizers have conducted several workshops in Bhutan, and brought monks to Honolulu for training. Mr. Jose intends to return to Bhutan to train nine monks in conservation.

Black Hat dancers in Thimphu. They will perform at the opening ceremony of an unprecedented exhibition of art and dances from Bhutan in Honolulu.

At the Honolulu Academy show, visitors will see Bhutanese sacred dances performed in a public secular context by five monks who will stay with the objects throughout their travels. More than 100 newly restored objects dating from the seventh to 20th centuries will be on public view for the first time.

Ephraim Jose, in blue, with the monks he is training as part of Honolulu Academy's project.

Dance films will be screened on video monitors, and veneration rituals will be offered by a rotating team of three monks.

The show is expected to travel to five other museums over the next two years, including the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, where it opens this September.

Photo: Shuzo Uemoto/Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Lire l'article "A Kingdom in the Mountains Shares Its Secrets" de Susan Emerling http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/arts/design/24emer.html?ex=1361509200&en=86ab21bb9e374127&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss