Some time ago, singer Chen Jieyi ushered in the moment of her debut for 30 years, and after leaving a deep memory on the audience with her singing, this Singaporean "national treasure" musician has found her new role in drama and life. New Weekly interviewed Chen Jieyi and talked to her about the important little things in her life.
When most people think of her, they think of the voice, a sound as delicate as silk that has drifted across the South Seas. The sound tastes like a cup of coffee with just the right amount of dry and wet aroma, smoothness and astringency, and the entrance is satisfying and unperfunctory mellow, and it is the sweetness that wraps up all the bitterness after going through the world.
Like the songs in the "Retranslation" album, which the public is most familiar with, such as "Heartbeat", "Regret" and "Left and Right Hands", Chen Jieyi has brought out these secret raw materials with her own unique taste: the foundation of musicals, the taste of pop music, thinking and experience as latte art, plus the details that are so skilled that it is almost impossible to miss, as long as you have heard her, it is difficult to forget.
(Photo/Cover of Chen Jieyi's album "Retranslation")
Sitting across from her, listening to her speak, and understanding this threshold flavor is not only to see her summing up her life, but also to look at herself from it. When I got closer to her, I realized that behind the voice were stories, ideas, branches and nutrients that shaped a person. Sound is never just sound.
The interview took place at noon. 51-year-old Chen Jieyi refused to shoot without makeup. But even without makeup, Chen Jieyi still has a full spirit that is enough to break free from the shackles of age and concepts. Her words seem to be full of caffeine to drive away drowsiness, and there is always a girlish leap in her expression, and there is a desire to open herself up to new things and talk to them.
Time is no threat to her. 2023 is the 30th anniversary of Chen Jieyi's debut, and I tried to make her summarize it, and she smiled, as if she was blaming the presumptuous question: I may have to be 70 years old to answer your question! I really think I'm still very young, and there are still a lot of things I haven't tried and want to try.
She is always curious about her next fascination, the next identity she will break free, and the next new role she will play, and she will even postpone the experience of the new character to keep it fresh.
Everything is just like Kitty Chan's new role in 2023.
Thirty years after his debut, it is still a "walking paradox"
This time, Chen Jieyi did not sing, but turned back to her old profession and starred in the newly scheduled musical "Lion Boy".
In 2021, this domestic animated feature film that rekindled the dreams of many people sparked a craze. Two years later, it was confirmed that it would be adapted into a musical. He Nian, who played the director, had a close cooperation with Chen Jieyi in "La La Land", so she was invited to star.
The role that Chen Jieyi wants to play is very special, she is the "teacher" Ah Zhen in "Lion Boy". Ah Zhen is the wife of the coach of the protagonist group, Xian Yuqiang, is a straightforward, tough, philistine, but deep down in her heart to keep the dream of the character, she plays an important role in the play, which is not only the test of the protagonist group, but also fulfills them in the end.
(Photo/Weibo @ Lion Youth Musical Crew)
I'm curious: When you act in a musical, do you have to prepare and figure it out a long time in advance?
But Chan said no. She started acting in musicals when she was in middle school and fell in love with the stage where her nature was unleashed. She developed the Xi of deliberately distancing herself from the character before rehearsals, rather than rehearsing and imagining too much.
After reading the script, Chen Jieyi likes Ah Zhen very much, "spicy, vulgar, and big, but her heart is warm and loyal", and she has the shadow of the roles she has played in musicals in the past. She can also understand Ah Zhen's state of mind: dreams are always expensive, and they can be diluted by reality and stacked into a life full of fishy and copper stench. But it's just buried deep and, in due course, will be excavated.
She is happy to challenge this process of excavation, just as she has done every time she has discovered new possibilities in the past.
The background of the story of "Lion Boy" also makes Chen Jieyi feel very intimate: the towns and villages around Guangzhou, full of ancient streets and alleys and simple people...... She said that watching the animation was like traveling back in time to Chinatown, Singapore, where she grew up, with those warm sunshines, humid and warm breaths, and stories rooted in the land.
Chen Jieyi in Guangzhou. (Photo/Weibo@Kit Chen Jieyi)
Ah Zhen is a contradictory and three-dimensional character, and it is also a character that fits Chen Jieyi's experience and feelings in the past 30 years of her debut.
Chan said that the most apt description of her over the years was what a friend called the "paradox of walking". Throughout her career as an artist, every step is not so natural, and the two things of "obedience" and "rebellion" have almost always been accompanied by each other:
She has always been known for her delicate and mellow love songs, but because she is tired of singing love songs all the time, singing a single style of masterpieces, so she made a special style sofa music album, the name is bluntly called "Chen Jieyi's Whimsical Space"; she escaped from the stage at the age of 35 as an artist, and unexpectedly went to work in an international public relations company, "In fact, she didn't necessarily go to a public relations company, but just happened to have such an opportunity." I was so stressed that I was dying. Actually, I can go to work anywhere, I just can't stand it anymore and I really want to escape from that environment."
(Photo/Weibo@Kit Chen Jieyi)
The two most important creators in Chen Jieyi's life, Singapore's "God of Folk Songs" Liang Wenfu wrote warm and moving love songs such as "Like You", "Look at the Moon" and "Come Back When It's Cold", and Pan Xieqing, a Taiwanese musician who knows her better, made Chen Jieyi sigh "Write my rebellious heart".
She is not only Chen Jieyi, who has heavy makeup and sings classic love songs steadily, but also Chen Jieyi, who sings "New York New York" in a new-style cheongsam. She is Chen Jieyi, who has wanted to be a prodigal son since she was a child, and sang "Home" and "Come Back When It's Cold". She is still an active entertainer in the music and musical theater industry, and she has more freedom to deal with her personal space.
Different aspects, a variety of styles, are Chen Jieyi. "So, why can't it be this and that at the same time? ”
Those important "little things"
At the 30th anniversary concert of her debut held in Singapore in September, Chen Jieyi did it herself. She was both a singer in a pink dress and a creative director of the concert. She hopes to use her favorite and most personalized way to personally write a footnote to her 30-year acting career, and design a very "Chen Jieyi" concept without the hands of others.
The final concept is called "Little Things". This is a key sentence that has been engraved in Chen Jieyi's heart for many years, but she can't find a reason for it for a while. She chose it as the theme of her concert, hoping to sum up this long and extraordinary time. She said that many friends are curious: why do you use "small things" instead of bigger words to summarize at such an important moment?
She couldn't figure out the exact reason for it.
(Photo/Weibo@Kit Chen Jieyi)
By the end of the concert, when the backstage was piled up with fan gifts, she noticed one of the most peculiar objects that brought back memories that she had forgotten for a long time: an English-language newspaper that interviewed her at the beginning of her debut, and in which she said at the time, "The most important thing is the little things."
She stressed to me with a look of surprise that she was very excited at the time, because she had long forgotten about this old interview, let alone remembering this sentence, but thirty years later, when she was preparing for her most important concert, this sentence inadvertently popped up again: "I was very happy in that moment, it proved that I have never forgotten my true heart." ”
She later wrote on Weibo: "...... When I look back, I realize that all the things that have brought me to this point are the so-called 'little things that don't matter'. These very important 'unimportant' things are things that deeply move me and put in my heart. ”
(Photo/Weibo@Kit Chen Jieyi)
In recent years, Chen Jieyi has found new "little things" that fascinate her.
During the pandemic, Kitty Chan was trapped at home in Singapore. After a few months at home, the woman, who was called "Mustang" by her mother because she insisted on choosing a musical when she was young, began to think about doing something more responsible and quieter to kill the long time.
So she found a very suitable direction: to be a farmer, to be a different "small role" from her before. Starting from a small potted plant at home, to a laborer wearing a straw hat and simple overalls, riding a bicycle to the greenhouse, she unexpectedly started a process of self-repair and reconciliation.
"I had never thought about doing farm work before, because I thought it was a long way off. When Chen Jieyi began to practice against her own nature and came into contact with those unfamiliar crops, she felt satisfied with the sense of stability and order that she had never had. She is fascinated by the concept of permaculture, where the future seems to be certain and sustainable with repetitive work. She has a field to inhabit at any time outside of her regular work. She now works on the farm whenever she has free time.
(Photo/Weibo@Kit Chen Jieyi)
She stressed to me that in order to prove that she was not a three-minute heat, she had to stay for a long time every time. After coming into contact with director He Nian and the crew of "Lion Boy", she returned to Singapore, and she plunged headlong into the farmland.
Since becoming a farmer, Chen Jieyi has slowly let go of some of her inner confrontations in the past, and has begun to conform to time and law, becoming more natural: "My identity as a farmer and singer is always subtle, disciplined and rhythmically replaced. This relationship is also another kind of 'climate' and 'ebb and flow'. ”
She loves this new interior, "I hope you also find something that will make your soul dance and your heart bloom."