VIDEO: Musician Shane Shanahan Performs Music Inspired by the Cave Temples of Dunhuang

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Shane Shanahan: When I came to the Getty Museum, I was really taken by the depiction of the two thunder gods on the ceiling of Cave 285. I really like it because it’s showing these two gods surrounded by drums, and they’re playing fiercely with both their hands and their feet, and obviously creating a very raucous thunder. And I, as a drummer, was very struck by that.

But as I began to look around the caves more, I was also struck by the way that many different cultures are juxtaposed directly next to each other. In one spot, you can very clearly see the Hindu gods Shiva and Ganesh seated next to a very much Chinese-looking figure. So this is something that inspired me to try to do something similar on my drum by combining different techniques from many different parts of the world. So I’ll be trying to combine Indian techniques with Persian techniques and Middle Eastern techniques to create a unified whole, much like this cave is a very unified whole, despite its many different cultural influences.

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I think because of Dunhuang’s important location on the Silk Road—it was an oasis in the middle of the desert—it brought together many different people, and those people actually had a very strong influence on each other, as well as the creation of these caves.

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