Singhi Chham

Singhi Chham or Kanchendzonga Dance is a lion dance form in Sikkim whereby the dancers perform in a lion costume that represents the snow lion. It is a dance of the Bhutia people, and was said to have been introduced by Chador Namgyal, the third Chogyal of Sikkim, in the 18th century. It is usually performed during the Panglapsool festival. In this dance, there may be two to four snow lions, each snow lion consists of two men in a lion costume, which is white with a bluish mane. The dance is accompanied by a single drummer. It has religious association as the peaks of Kangchenjunga (Khang-Chen Dzong Pa), which is sacred to the people of Sikkim, are believed to resemble the legendary snow lion.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Singhi Chham”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Singhi Chham is type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶