The Odyssey–From Vietnam to America and the Experience of Epic
When I walk into the home I grew up in, I can smell it. A scent that used to be the default for me, the source from which all other scents were compared to, now foreign. I eventually acclimate every time, but when I leave once again, the scent starts to fade on me. Stop me before I sing an entire epic about this feeling, because plenty already have.
Homecoming is indivisible from our shared history of stories. The epics Journey to the West from China, the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia, the Ramayana from India, and of course, the Odyssey from Greece, all employ the theme. Home looks different and strange to each of these epics’ heroes when they make it there, and this discomfort is often the question that their finales linger on, even as the protagonists hold their loved ones tight. But these homes are still fundamentally the places our heroes left and now return to. What do we make of an odyssey where the hero leaves home without another in sight yet?
If these heroes of historic epics long to return home, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ is invested in the journey to create a new home. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, Võ composed The Odyssey– From Vietnam to America “to give voice to those who perished or for those for whom it is too painful to speak.”
The audience first enters to see a stage with sheets stretched in front of various instruments upstage. The sheets’ form is structural, and their light bodies against the dark stage, rustling in the almost-still central air, look like a boat at rest. Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ leads the other performers onstage, the Arneis Quartet and two percussionists from Blood Moon Orchestra. Arneis is composed of faculty members from Boston University, and Võ is in turn an artist in residence of their Kaisahan Initiative, a project grounded in intersectionality and lasting artistic relationships.
During the performance, a projection behind the musicians introduces us to the narrative. Fleeing the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of refugees set out in boats, many smaller than the stage before us, with the goal of sanctuary. They were the Boat People, who faced the elements, pirates, and apprehensive hosts in the countries where they first landed. Many would be relocated to other countries, facing new adjustments and acclimations. Many would form the Vietnamese American community that are our neighbors, friends, and family today.
Võ sings and plays various Vietnamese folk instruments, such as the đàn t’rưng and the đàn bầu. The latter is a monostringed instrument with a rod made of water buffalo horn stretched above, acting as a sort of whammy bar to give the instrument vibrato. Its wide range of pitches and artfully controlled vibrato center its sound among the other instruments, a vocalist with backup. Violins also fill this role when Võ is working with other instruments, with similar range and vibrato. Võ travels around the stage from instrument to instrument, usually quickly, but sometimes she lingers for a moment, floating along with rhythm in her every movement. As she flits up and down, the viewer squirms in their seat, wondering if she’ll make it to her next location in time. Her choreography is precise, and the way she imbues her specificity with suspense forces the audience to see the movement of the music from instrument to instrument as a constant construction of sound, a plot that could go anywhere next.
Watching Võ dance around the stage, the violinists rising out of their chairs during crescendos, the tense shoulders of the taiko drummer, the audience sees Võ and her orchestra construct a story in front of them in real time. There are beats to hit– the boat, the water, the weariness, the fear, and naturally, the conclusion in a new land. Everything in between feels like it could jolt one way or another at any moment, and the listener is along for the ride. Among an endless expanse of water, each movement of the music reveals a new day and a new space the Boat People occupy on the sea. A projection of grey water accompanies music that infects the audience with the suffocation of silence and loneliness. Flashes of red follow the sounds representing storms, pirate ambushes, and all of the horrible surprises that make one long for some of that silence again. The eventual lightening of the sky and softening of music allows the audience to fully exhale. In hindsight, the rising and falling action of the music fits perfectly into a classic story structure. In the moment, the story feels only like the open sea, with anything on the horizon.
Photos pass by on the screen as the music winds to conclusion. Newspaper clippings about Vietnamese immigration, grainy family photos, modern Vietnamese American celebrities. This is the ending the audience knew was coming, the culture we live in now. But our status quo, following a performance exploring struggle and transformation, now feels triumphant. “What is this place I must make my home?” Võ asks. She finds an answer: Well, it’s strong, but so am I. It’s malleable, but so am I. It was here, and had its own story before I arrived, but so did I. What else is there to do but make it mine?