Ritual dance has has long had a place in Tibetan narrative, religious, and musical tradition. Tibetan ritual dance traces back its roots to the reign of Trisong Detsen as a theological, ritual tool to counter inauspicious conditions brought about by Bonpo shamans for the construction of the Samye monastery.
The cham exists as a religious ritual dance, with a heavy emphasis on symbols and allegory through its use of masks of wrathful deities and narrative content, often portraying religious tales and fables or delivering a religious message. The performance of the cham and the firey, often frightening imagery associated with the cham, was intimately connected with Tantric Buddhist theory, and beyond ritually securing and protecting locations and events, it codified Tantric Buddhist thought by way of publicly worshiping and invoking wrathful Buddhist deities. It is traditionally performed at varying speeds, with slow and fast movements.
Below is one such example of a Cham dance.
The gar exists as a more secular court dance, and a heavy presence in Tibetan royal life and procedure. Preparation for the musical dance was in itself part of the ritual, as the gar-performing troupe of the royal court would often by highly vetted and rigorously trained, and often the performance would serve as an institutional jumping off point for those who hoped to enter secular public life. The Gar is less chaotic in practice than the Cham, and has a far more measured pace, both in speed and gestures, as it includes slow and carefully chosen hand gestures called mudras.
The maintenance of a gar dance troupe was a royal prerogative, and the performances took place only on certain special occasions such as Losar or the enthronement of a Dalai Lama…. The training, which the boys received, was extremely hard; they rose at dawn and practiced singing and dancing until bedtime…. They could hope to receive a clerical position in one of the government offices when they grew up.
Conrad, Gar – Court Dance and Music
The gar organization, Gar-pa Kyi-do had about 70-80 members who performed the special music played on the kettle-drums, damma and the double-reed shawms, suna, as well as participating in other instrumental ensembles.
Below is a recorded example of the Gar, performed in Kathmandu, Nepal; compared to the Cham, the far heavier emphasis on musical choreography and instrumentation, as well as relative dearth of religious symbolism makes clear its more secular historical role.
Citations:
Conrad, Ashu. “Gar – Court Dance and Music.” Lhamo – Historical Background, tibetanarts.dk/gar.htm.
Tibetan Music 