It is a festival celebrated by the Tibetan people.
The Xuedong Festival is a national festival of the Tibetan people in Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan and other provinces and districts, and one of the national intangible cultural heritages. The word "Xuedong" means yogurt feast.
In Tibetan, "snow" is the meaning of yogurt, "ton" is "eat" "feast" meaning, snow festival according to the Tibetan language, "snow" is the meaning of yogurt, "ton" is "eat" "feast". Meaning, Snow Festival according to the Tibetan interpretation is to eat yogurt festival.
Because there are Tibetan opera performances and Buddha basking ceremonies during the Xuedong Festival, some people also call it the "Tibetan Opera Festival" and the "Buddha Exhibition Festival.
The Xeton Festival was a primitive religious festival before the 17th century. According to folklore, as the weather warmed up in the summer, the insects stung and everything revived, and the monks who went out during that time inevitably stepped on and killed people, which violated the precepts of "no killing".
Therefore, the precepts of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan calendar April to June period, monks can only be in the temple chanting practice, until the end of June to open the ban. Until the day of the opening of the ban, monks have been out of the temple down the mountain, secular people in order to reward the monks, ready to brew yogurt, for them to hold picnics and wild feasts, and in the celebration of the Tibetan opera. This is the origin of the Snowdon Festival.
Tibetan Opera Performance:
Tibetan opera performance is the essence of the festival. After more than 600 years of inheritance and development, the traditional Tibetan opera performance shows the charm of Tibetan opera art with its unique dance rhythm, loud and clear singing, gorgeous costumes, simple masks and colorful plots.
For the Xuedong Festival, which is both religious and secular, the annual Tibetan opera performance plays a pivotal role in communicating between gods and men. The content of Tibetan opera performances has the effect of entertaining the gods, but also the joy of entertaining people.
The form of Tibetan opera performances is constantly changing with the trend of the times. For example, from the simple square dance to the stage, and its reform and development of innovation is the most important feature is that in addition to retaining some of the characteristics of extremely strong character mask, most of the characters that actors no longer perform with masks, but the use of masquerade performances, and the character of the artistic characteristics of the character is more distinctive.
Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia - Xuedong Festival