Royal Academy of Performing Arts

The Royal Academy of Performing Arts was formally established by our late third King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk in 1954, with the gracious intention to preserve and promote our Bhutanese Mask dance, folk dance, and music. Since its inception, the academy introduced courses on the three categories; Mask dance, folk dance, and music. Currently, it is one of the premiere institutes in the country under the Ministry of Home & Cultural Affairs.

Objective:

The main objective of RAPA is not only to preserve and promote our Bhutanese folk songs, mask dance, and music but also to carry out research in relevant fields and share the knowledge with the artists and trainees.

Core Services:

1. To preserve and promote our intangible culture that has been passed down through generations.
2. To impart knowledge on the folk songs, mask dances, and music to the trainees and artist of the RAPA. Thus, we conduct yearly exam in order to uphold the quality of the folk songs and mask dances.
3. To conduct the workshop on the mask dances and ratify all its choreography, lyrics and tunes. For this purpose, we invite the mask dancers from 20 Dzongkhags.
4. Invite the popular singers, dancers and musicians from across the country and they train our performers by providing their skills and talents.
5. Depute our senior artists to various districts,Dzongkhags, schools, to train their local performers for their annual festival.
6. To improvise festivals for some Dzongkhags. For instance, Punakha tshechu was introduced by RAPA in 2005, on the command of His Holiness the Jekhenpo and His Excellency the then Prime Minister. Later RAPA improvised it by extending the program.
7. To help in establishing festivals in the country. For instance, Dochu la tshechu and Dechhenphu tshechu.