The Return Of “Blond-Haired Thi Mau”
By Hanh Thu
In her comeback after several years of absence, the Australian girl would not perform excerpts of the ancient performing art of tuong and cheo anymore. Instead, she would bring in some fresh air with her very own music style. On stage, apart from her blond hair, Eleanor Clapham looks no different from a Vietnamese girl, with khan xep, ao dai, yem tham and her fluent Vietnamese singing.
Her first encounter with the Vietnamese tuong (traditional theater) and cheo (northern opera) happened while she was a student at the university of performing arts in Wollongong, Australia. A demonstration of the ancient art by a Vietnamese Australian artist named Ta Duy Binh had a tremendous impression on Eleanor. She was completely captivated by the graceful dancing and singing and its uniqueness seemed to be “haunting” Eleanor days after that. So much so that she was determined to grasp the essence of this ancient art, despite Ta Duy Binh’s warning of its complexity even for a Vietnamese.
As if bewitched by the ancient art, the young girl made her way to a faraway land, dedicated her time and efforts to master the traditional art of this nation and faced an array of challenges, such as learning Vietnamese, learning dancing moves that contain alien cultural implications and the multi-tonal pronunciations of the language.
After two years of robust training, on some last day of 2006, Eleanor, stage name Hoang Lan, took the Vietnamese audience by storm as the very first foreigner to perform the art of tuong and cheo. The audience who admired the talent of Eleanor Hoang Lan called her “blond-haired Thi Mau” as she took on the role outstandingly. Not only did she get the attention, she also received invitations for subsequent shows. Unexpectedly and puzzlingly, Eleanor went out of the limelight when she was at her peak.
Just as sudden as her absence, Eleanor reappeared to perform in her very own live show entitled “The Awakening” in Hanoi last month. During the comeback, Eleanor recalled how she was devastated after leaving Vietnam. The applause that she received from the Vietnamese audience was a big motivation to improve herself when her career development was coming to a deadlock. Tuong and cheo certainly were her passion but deep inside, she still felt the art was too distinctive in someone else’s culture to relate to. Back to Australia, shattered, lost and not knowing what to do, the young performer had to contend with being a coffee maker at a restaurant in Sydney. “Life seems to be meaningless,” Eleanor said.
“I tried to do different jobs in a whole year but nothing could bring back my happiness and enthusiasm.” Just when her crisis could not get any worse, Eleanor was invited to perform cheo in a show at Little Red Shop Theatre in Singapore by director Benny Lee. After the event, while en route back to Australia, Eleanor visited Hanoi only to realize she had found her love again and her own way: a fusion of tuong-cheo and pop music.
Eleanor made a sweet comeback with 12 songs, in both English and Vietnamese that she composed herself. Her performance includes fan dance, flag dance, sword dance and tuong’s drumbeat to describe the innermost feelings of a girl who always dreams to love and is always perturbed by the art or life. The music of the songs is a combination of Western musical instruments and traditional Vietnamese ones, such as long zither, monochord zither and flute.
The song Nga Ba Duong – Crossroads depicts the impasse of a person when at the crossroads, just like a victim of a spider web, stuck and helpless. With Nhip Dap Trai Tim – Heartbeat, one can see Eleanor deeply in love and then vicious in Cuon Ra Bien – Swept To Sea. In Dien – Crazy, Eleanor uses the classic tales in tuong and cheo such as Suy Van gia dai (Suy Van pretends crazy), Ho Nguyet Co hoa cao (Ho Nguyet Co turns into fox). The show ended with Ru Anh – Lullaby, a creation in which Eleanor brought the soft melodies of the northern women’s lullaby to lull the love between a couple.
The Awakening was highly rated by the audience with non-stop applause. Eleanor Hoang Lan deserves such praise for her serious and creative efforts on the journey to her own genre. Hoang Lan commented: “I did not waste what I had learned. With the influence from traditional Vietnamese music and my own interpretation, I hope to develop my own music style.”
In October 2010, Eleanor Hoang Lan will release a CD composed of her songs and some of the excerpts of tuong and cheo that she performed. The live show The Awakening is to be held in HCM City at the beginning of November before moving to Danang.