Back into the limelight
Monday, May 31, 2010 (GMT+7)
After becoming the first foreigner to master the Vietnamese performing arts of tuong and cheo in 2006, Eleanor Clapham disappeared without a trace. Now she has returned to Vietnam to release her debut album The Awakening.
On December 22 in 2006, millions of people across Vietnam sat in front of their televisions looking on in amazement as they witnessed something they had never seen before: a blonde haired, blue-eyed Australian woman performing the ancient performing arts of tuong (classical opera) and cheo (popular opera) on stage at the Hanoi Opera House.
Her name was Eleanor Clapham, but her Vietnamese friends called her Hoang Lan, and she had the country captivated. She was the first foreigner ever to study tuong and cheo, which are extremely difficult even for Vietnamese drama students. But just as she enjoyed her moment in the spotlight, she exited stage left, leaving everyone wondering, Hoang Lan dau roi? (Where is Hoang Lan?)
The early years ...
Born in Canberra, Clapham had always been interested in performing, inspired by her musician father and theatre-loving mother. At the age of 10 she created her own puppet show and gave performances at local schools.
In 2005, while Clapham was completing her Bachelor of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong she was dropped from the opera class and told that she didn’t have what it takes to be an Opera singer.
“I spent a lot of time feeling as if I was constantly at a crossroads. I knew I wanted to be a performer, but didn’t know how I was going to compete with all the performers that I perceived to be more talented than me,” says Clapham.
A turning point
She began seeking some direction for her creative career and she found it in the most unlikely of places: a Vietnamese Australian by the name of Ta Duy Binh came to her university to demonstrate the traditional Vietnamese art of tuong. Clapham was blown away by the stylised, delicate and beautiful nature of the dance and the singing; it was like nothing she had ever seen before.
She knew that if she could learn this, she would have a skill that would set her out from the crowd. When she approached Ta Duy Binh with the idea that she would go to Vietnam and learn the art of tuong he told her that it would be an immense challenge as she would have to learn Vietnamese. He said that perhaps she could learn the dance but there was no way she would be able to learn how to sing as it was considered incredibly complex even for Vietnamese performers.
Total determination
But Clapham’s mind was made up. In 2005 She travelled to Vietnam, determined that she could and would master these ancient theatrical arts. After arriving in Vietnam with very little Vietnamese language skills, she moved in with the family of performance artists, Thanh Tuyet and Luu Tich Duc, who did not speak a lick of English. Over time Thanh Tuyet became like a mother figure for the young Australian and later became her teacher.
Tackling tuong first, Clapham began her daily lessons with several teachers, none of whom spoke any English. Her lessons involved stylised dancing, singing, acting and weapons movement, different to anything she had ever heard before, and all in Vietnamese. An extract from her diary about those initial training sessions prove that at first she was overwhelmed: “Today was the first day that I felt that the language barrier was restricting me, up until now I have felt quite confident about my progress, but today’s lesson shattered me, and I asked myself, what am I doing here?”
But after an intensive year studying, she could perform some classic extracts of tuong and cheo such as Xuy Van Gia Dai (Xuy Van Feigns Madness) and Ho Nguyet Co hoa Cao (Ho Nguyet Co becomes a Fox). At the end of 2006, Clapham performed in a solo show at the historic Hanoi Opera House leaving the audience stunned.
Leave it all behind
After her moment in the spotlight, Clapham soon exited stage left, returning to Australia, despite the success of her solo show. It was a decision her teachers and peers could not understand. She had performed on VTV4 and at high profile events for APEC and Tet, which were broadcast nationwide. She went from being just another “tay” on the crowded streets of Hanoi to being a household name with an army of sponsors.
But underneath the façade of success, the young gutsy performer was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “I had worked and worked and worked, and I never took time to rest, I was putting huge physical demands on my body and on my mind and I was getting all this attention and invitations to perform,” recalls Clapham. “But all of this sudden success was so daunting for me, it was unexpected and I didn’t know how to handle it. It’s hard to explain what was happening inside of me but all I can say is that I was so hard on myself and expected so much of myself that I eventually just broke down.”
She felt so distraught and confused that she decided to give up all together, leaving Vietnam for the comfort of her homeland. “This was the lowest point of my life,” says Clapham. “If anyone asks me why I’d left Vietnam I would just cry and say ‘I don’t know why’. I felt so lost, with no direction. I went from being in the spotlight in Vietnam to working in a restaurant in Sydney making coffee, and no one knew or cared what I’d achieved. It was like my life had no meaning.”
She put her head down and worked. For a year she tried her hand at a few endeavours but nothing gave her any drive or joy. Finally, Clapham decided to go back to university and pursue some new career. But before the new academic year began, out of the blue, she received an invitation out of the blue to perform tuong and cheo in Singapore.
“After going to Singapore and having an amazing experience I went back to Vietnam on my way home to Australia. I was walking down the streets of Hanoi it occurred to me why I had left Vietnam and what I really wanted to do,” says Clapham. “And it came to me, what I’d always wanted to do, since I was a child, to be a song writer. I wanted to create music that made use and drew inspiration of everything I’d learnt in Vietnam at the same time coming right from a place in my heart that was completely my own.”
Back on track
After one and a half years of hard work and dedication, Clapham’s dream was finally becoming a reality. She returned to her second home, Vietnam, to record music she has created for an album she has appropriately named The Awakening. This time she was coming with the emotional support of her fiancé, Cat Tran Tung, a Vietnamese actor and businessman living in Australia.
“I wrote each song coming straight from the heart, thus the album is in a way a heartfelt chronological recording of my journey so far,” says Clapham. “It’s got pain and a sense of being lost and not knowing where to go, it’s got waking up and realising who you want to be, it’s got love and joy and hope and fear...”
With the album set for release in August, Clapham is once again busily preparing for a performance at the Hanoi Opera House on June 26. “Even though all of my music is written in English, I wrote Vietnamese verses for each of the songs for this concert so that I could include everyone. I want everyone to go home and really understand what I was trying to say through my music,” adds Clapham.
All proceeds from the concert will go towards KOTO hospitality training school for poor, disadvantaged and street children. “I truly believe with all my heart that we are all of us creators of magic,” says Clapham. “And we can create anything we dream, the only thing standing in our way is hard work, dedication and a burning desire.”
Tickets are now avaliable for Eleanor Clapham’s performance at KOTO Restaurant, 59 Van Mieu, Hanoi, for VND400,000 or VND500,000. She is still looking for sponsors for this upcoming event. If you would like to find out more call 012 2909 8900 or email tungcat@gmail.com.
Source: Time-out