as the subject of sporadic but intensive fieldwork by Scandinavian researchers in the 1920s and early 1930s, so that some of the traditional music culture was documented before Mongol society underwent the changes brought by war and the advent of socialism. Tibetan music has attracted increasing attention since the late 1950s, when large numbers of Tibetan refugees poured into the Himalayan kingdoms and northern sectors of India, thus making Tibetan music more accessible to outside observation. Afghanistan has been the object of intensive musical investigation only since the mid-1960s. Thus, outside Soviet contributions, Central Asia remains a lightly researched although quite fertile area of musical investigation.Mark S. SlobinThe performing arts have played an important role in the spiritual and social life of Central Asia, where they evolved as didactic art forms within a religious context. Performance, therefore, occurs in conjunction with some religious or special event. Two main types of performance predominate throughout Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Mongolia, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia: those related to shamanism and those derived from Buddhism. The performing arts of the Turkic peoples of Afghanistan and Turkistan are different from these because of the influence of the Islāmic religion and are discussed in the article Islāmic arts: Dance and theatre (Islamic arts). The Hindu influence found in Nepalese theatre and dance is treated in the article South Asian arts: Dance and theatre (South Asian arts).Although primarily intended to serve the overt purposes of religion, dance and theatre in Central Asia are performing arts with covert aesthetic values. Vocal and physical expressions of appreciation by an audience attending a performance depend on the graceful and rhythmic execution of hand gestures, body movements, and footwork. Aesthetic values are best expressed in the elaborate and artistic costumes, masks, and makeup, coupled with effective though crude stage effects and props.Musical instruments (musical instrument) play an important role in the performance of Central Asian dance and theatre. Usually a drum, but in some cases a string instrument, is used by the shaman to induce the ecstatic trance during which he symbolically journeys to the heavens or to the netherworld when playing the role of a psychopomp, or conductor of souls. Performances of the Buddhist monastic dance, known as 'cham, and the Buddhist morality plays, called a-che-lha-mo (“older sister goddess”), were accompanied by a variety of instruments, especially drums and horns. There were large and small drums, short horns with fingering holes, and long horns, particularly the dung-chen (great conch shell) made of brass (brass instrument) and extending many feet. The dung-chen with a deep haunting wail accentuates the macabre that is so much a part of 'cham. The Tibetan guitar sgra-synan (pleasant sound) is a stringed instrument used almost exclusively by Himalayan peoples for folk song and dance.Perhaps because of the subjectivism of their religions, it was not the custom among the peoples of Central Asia to carry out objective studies of elements in their cultures, and, therefore, no indigenous evaluation of their dance and theatre is available. Although a few manuals for the performance of shamanic rituals, music, and the 'cham do exist, as do scripts for the a-che-lha-mo, much of the history and traditional staging of these forms of theatre and dance was handed down by oral tradition.Shamanic ritualTeachings that spirits are responsible for unexplainable phenomena, such as disease and death, and that these spirits can be controlled by an individual with special powers, such as a shaman (shamanism), evolved in many primitive societies throughout the world, including those of the nomadic peoples of Central Asia. The roles of the shaman include oracle, healer, sacrificer, and psychopomp, and each role calls for the performance of specific rituals (ritual). The earliest form of theatre and dance in Central Asia, these ritual