Narrated by Ali MacGraw, DANCE OF YOUNG NOMADS interweaves layers of personal experiences, poems, mythical memories, dance, paintings, photographs and video to tell the story of Tibetan youth in exile.

DANCE OF YOUNG NOMADS // SYNOPSIS
Each year, an undisclosed number of Tibetan children risk their lives to escape oppressive conditions in their occupied homeland. On foot, children as young as ten years old cross Himalayan mountain passes in search of a traditional Tibetan education that is no longer available in their occupied homeland. Overcoming the traumatic experience of escape and adjusting to life in a strange country, these brave young refugees find healing in telling their stories and making powerful art.

Knowing they may never see their families again, these children cross 17,000-foot Himalayan passes to face the dangers of blizzards, starvation, frostbite and detection by armed border patrols. Their destination: India, where they are free to practice their religion and learn the
traditions of their people. DANCE OF YOUNG NOMADS is their story.

Filmmaker Kitty Leaken encourages a few of these brave children to talk about their flight to freedom. Tiger (his alias) recounts his ill-fated escape attempt at the age of six. As his painting graphically illustrates, a monk-guide leading the boy’s trek to freedom falls to his death, leaving the boy stranded. He is captured by Chinese police and held in jail for two months. A second painting shows him as a very small boy under interrogation.

Another student, Tenzin, expresses the pain of separation in his poem:

“Feeling like a rat in the country of snakes. Heard voices all
around, but found no one talking... Saw my mother in my
dreams, who disappeared as I came to hug her. Was miss-
ing my parents so much, like the flower misses the sunlight.”

On a lighthearted note, Ngodup, like many teenage boys worldwide, croons in a pop song about a girl of his dreams.

DANCE OF YOUNG NOMADS provides a glimpse into the refugees’ first taste of life in exile at the busy Reception Centers in Kathmandu, Nepal where the children are fed, clothed, issued identity papers, and put on a bus headed for Dharamsala. At a Tibetan-sponsored school in India they learn to honor the ways of their people, from the nomads herding yaks in the highlands, to the traditions of folk song and dance. They participate in morning and evening Buddhist prayers without fear of persecution. Only in exile can they openly learn in school about their culture, history and language.

Leaken’s camera follows the children to one of these large boarding schools, Tibetan Homes Foundation, in Mussoorie, India, where they are invited into the Painting Club (now called Art Refuge). Under the guidance of staff and volunteers, children are encouraged to paint their painful memories and current experiences. The resulting images, shown in the film, are distressing depictions of the refugee experience but also illustrate the inspiring resilience of these joyful spirits.

The viewer gets a first-hand look at Art Refuge, a program created by Leaken, and Sarah K. Lukas, producer and president of Friends of Tibetan Women’s Association. Art Refuge grew out of the first Painting Clubs to provide a safe place where children’s creative spirits are nurtured and where they can explore with paint on paper their memories of home and family, their escape out of Tibet and their hopes for the future.

“Both Kitty and I were struck by how these children needed to get back to being kids, as opposed to worrying about the next meal or dodging bullets,” Lukas said. “I firmly believe the creative forces are healing. We’ve seen how painting helps them get past the traumatic journey and separation from their families. Beside the tragedy of exile, this documentary is about healing.”

DANCE OF YOUNG NOMADS was created to accompany an exhibit that originated at the Museum of International Folk Art, in Santa Fe, NM and a book, The Art of Exile: Paintings by Tibetan Children in India (Museum of New Mexico Press, 1998).