NHAT ANH NGUYEN TRANG
01.
CREATIVE
VENTURES
Hanoi-Amsterdam Art Team
President/Show Director
The Hanoi–Amsterdam Art Team is our school’s largest interdisciplinary art club, bringing together students from many fields of performance and production. With more than 200 members across departments — Vocal–Instrument, Dance, Acting, Logistics, Media, Design, Finance, and PR — the club functions like a miniature production house: part ensemble, part studio, part creative laboratory.
"Where I Began"
I joined the Hanoi–Amsterdam Art Team as a Vocal–Instrument member, originally recognized for my voice, which had a light, airy tone with surprisingly strong projection. My upper register quickly became my signature. It was bright, controlled, and capable of reaching G♯5 with clarity and strength. Older members often described my singing as "emotionally expressive yet powerful". During one club performance, a recording of my singing gained significant attention online, becoming the most listened-to cover on the club’s YouTube page.
Alongside singing, I led band arrangements and composed original pieces, spending long hours in studio sessions with the instrumentalists. We would sit together, each with an instrument or notebook, throwing out ideas for melodies, harmonies, and rhythms. Sometimes a single chord progression would spark a whole song, and other times we experimented endlessly, trying different combinations of instruments or vocal lines until something clicked. These sessions were messy, joyful, and full of energy — laughter breaking out over a misplayed note, heated debates over tempo giving way to sudden breakthroughs. Over time, I learned to shape my own style in a way that reflected the personality of the club. Every arrangement, every note I sang, carried a piece of who I was, but also aligned with the club’s energy, its vibe, and the stories we wanted to tell. In those moments, I discovered how arranging and composing could give a performance its heartbeat and identity, and how to balance personal expression with the club’s character to make every performance feel authentic.
"Standing Out Among 200+ Members"
As time went on, I began to venture beyond singing and music. I became involved in other aspects of the club, helping with logistics, supporting event planning, and contributing wherever the team needed me. I assisted dancers with rhythm counts, advised on stage arrangements, and collaborated with the media and design teams to shape the visual presentation of performances.
My willingness to step outside my comfort zone helped me understand how different parts of a production fit together and allowed me to contribute to the club’s creative vision in a broader way.
I wasn’t the strongest in every area, but I was present in each one — curious, reliable, and deeply invested in the club’s vision.
That multidisciplinary involvement became my strength.
From over 200 members, I was selected as President.
"Leading The Club"
When I became president, I stepped into a whirlwind of ideas, personalities, and schedules. Leading the Hanoi-Amsterdam Art Team was exhilarating and demanding. I worked closely with a large team of students across departments, dancers, instrumentalists, actors, designers, media coordinators, and logistics members, learning how to guide projects while keeping the creative energy alive.
Small Projects
THE GALA
Our flagship event, GALA, was a full three-hour musical that I helped shape from the ground up. The script explored complex emotional journeys, showing how people navigate grief and find connection. Casting and training actors became one of my most rewarding responsibilities. I spent hours coaching them on character development, vocal performance, and stage presence, helping each performer embody their role authentically while connecting to the ensemble as a whole.
Some of the most memorable moments happened away from the stage. I spent evenings at a teammate’s house, surrounded by paint, brushes, and cardboard, coloring props for the show. We laughed over spilled paint, debated which shades best captured a scene’s mood, and shared snacks between strokes. Those quiet, hands-on days were just as meaningful as rehearsals in the auditorium.
By the time the doors opened to over 800 audience members, every element — music, acting, stage design, and lighting — felt aligned with the club’s vision. I felt incredibly proud of what we, as a team of friends, collaborators, and talented individuals I deeply admire, had brought to life. Together, we turned our most ambitious creative ideas into a performance that resonated with the audience. I am profoundly thankful for their dedication, trust, and artistry, and for the way each person poured their heart into realizing a shared vision.
A O Show
Stage Director, Promoter & Marketer
"Where It Began"
I spent my days surrounded by 17 senior staff members, many of whom had dedicated more than a decade of their lives to preserving and reinventing Vietnamese culture through performance.
A O Show rarely accepts high school interns, given the technical complexity and intellectual property restrictions of a long-running production. But after reading my application and hearing about my familiarity with traditional arts, the team gave me a chance. I traveled with the chief operator to Hội An and Đà Nẵng to assist regional operations, learning quickly how demanding, fast-paced, and detail-oriented this world truly was.
"Learning From Masters"
What touched me most was the deep devotion every person carried. The acrobats, dancers, musicians, lighting technicians, stagehands — they weren’t simply doing a job. They were breathing life into something larger than themselves: a way of expressing Vietnam that was bold, surprising, and unapologetically creative.
There were moments when I would stand in the wings during rehearsals, holding my breath as the performers balanced on bamboo poles or leaped into impossible catches. Their focus was absolute. Their trust in one another was total. Their commitment to the story and to the culture was unwavering.
Sometimes I felt humbled just to be in the same room. To this day, I believe I learned as much from their silence as I did from their explanations. Being in their presence made me want to work harder, listen better, and honor the craft with as much sincerity as they did.
I admired them not just because they were extraordinary performers, but because they are trailblazers in the fields and they had devoted their lives to shaping something meaningful, radical, and uniquely Vietnamese — something that audiences around the world could feel, even if they didn’t speak the language.
Simply breathing the same air as them felt like a privilege.
"Finding My Place"
I started spending every free moment backstage. I sketched lighting transitions, memorized acrobat routines, and studied how sound, movement, and timing intertwined. I often stayed late reviewing campaign archives and brainstorming digital content that could introduce younger audiences to the work.
Within two weeks, I developed a short-form media series spotlighting the performers’ stories, which doubled online engagement. That was the moment I realized how powerful storytelling could be — both onstage and off.
"A Decade in Motion"
As I learned more, my curiosity grew into something bolder: I proposed a concept for “À Ố Show: A Decade in Motion,” a commemorative edition celebrating 10 years of the production. Because the show would be performed in a smaller venue, the narrative structure needed to shift. I drafted a new sequence of transitions, lighting logic, and a cue-mapping system that synchronized movement with sound and rhythm. To my astonishment, the team trusted my vision enough to appoint me Stage & Production Director for this edition.
"At the Heart of a Production"
In preparation for the production, I attended more than 30 rehearsals and full run-throughs. I coordinated a backstage team of 10 and worked closely with five senior performers to refine transitions for a two-hour live show.
My musical background helped me sense micro-beats and subtle timing shifts that tightened cues and brought fluidity to the performance. But honestly, the technical side was only half of what made the experience meaningful.
The real beauty was seeing the passion in every person around me — the patience of the stagehands, the precision of the lighting team, the resilience of the acrobats who repeated the same lift twenty times until it felt effortless. Their dedication taught me how much quiet love goes into creating art that feels alive.
"What It Left Me With"
À Ố became more than an internship. It was an immersion into a community of artists who held their craft with reverence. Their devotion to culture, to movement, to creative integrity shaped the way I see art and the way I hope to contribute to it.
I left the show with a deeper understanding of how tradition and innovation can meet, how storytelling can move people without words, and how meaningful it is to create alongside people who care so much about what they do.
Above all, I left grateful — grateful for their patience, their trust, their kindness, and their willingness to let me learn beside them. They taught me much more than just how a show is run. They taught me how to embody art.
Diana Summer Fest
Intern & Creative Director
Diana Summer Fest was the most industry-facing creative project I’ve ever led. It's a full-scale concert concept I had to pitch against three major agencies in Vietnam, and it was the first time I stepped into a room filled with professionals twice my age and argued for a vision I believed in. I joined the project through an internship with ST Communications, one of Vietnam’s top agencies. There, I translated my understanding of the audience into a 57-page creative deck, full of concept boards, 3D stage renders, narrative arcs, and key moments, and ultimately secured the project.
But the heart of the project came from something much more personal.
I was the same age as the girls Diana hoped to reach, which meant I understood their insecurities not from audience research, but from the inside. I knew the feeling of wanting to be bold yet worrying I was “too much.” I knew the quiet comparisons, the pressure to appear effortless, the way confidence can flicker even in the brightest moments. Those tiny observations became the emotional blueprint of Into the Colorful Maze.
They shaped the way I imagined each color-coded “door,” how the maze should feel from the inside, and the emotional pacing of the concert. Everything — from the softness of pink to the electric drive of blue — grew from a very real place. The project wasn’t just built around a theme; it was built around the emotional truth of girlhood, seen through my own experiences and the stories I’d grown up around.
The stage itself was designed as a literal maze. When the LED panels lit up and the structure unfolded, it felt like stepping inside the mind of a girl navigating her own complexity. We built an AI host to guide the audience through the pathways, introducing each “color world” with its own mood, artists, choreography, and atmosphere. Each door opened into a different emotional dimension with a shift in lighting, music, tone and artists lineup.
The scale was massive, but the feeling remained intimate. The production itself was a marvel of collaboration. I worked alongside dancers, lighting designers, stagehands, and technicians — all of whom devoted incredible care to every detail. I watched industry professionals move with precision and patience through chaotic, high-pressure days, and I found myself deeply enamored by their dedication and mastery.
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Beyond the show, the experience offered invaluable lessons on professionalism, teamwork, and values in the workplace. I witnessed the ebbs of work life — intense deadlines, problem-solving under pressure, moments of failure and breakthrough — and learned that creativity alone isn’t enough; empathy, respect, and resilience are equally crucial.
I felt immense pride for the production and for the personal stories that had inspired every step of the journey. I have achieved what I wanted with concept of the concert, which is to make it a breathing dialogue between the audience, the artists, the brand, and the heart of the girls it sought to reach.
Eventopia Club
Founder, Event Manager
I founded Eventopia to create a space where students could learn how to bring ambitious events to life — a student-led organization that combined creativity, logistics, and collaboration into one living, breathing experiment. Starting with just 30 members, I envisioned a club where curiosity could meet practical skills, and where every idea, no matter how small, had the potential to grow into a full-scale production.
Under my leadership, we partnered with leading Vietnamese event agencies to produce hybrid events, bridging the gap between student initiative and professional standards. I led a 15-member core team through stage management, costume operations, and PB/PG coordination at two major professional shows, and directed a student-produced film premiere for nearly 500 attendees on a $5,800 budget. Each project became a lesson in precision, teamwork, and creative problem-solving — and every late night spent mapping timelines or testing stage setups became a small triumph.
Weekly trainings became a ritual, a chance to mentor and be mentored simultaneously. Together with three national event directors, we explored ideation, budgeting, and cutting-edge technologies like AR, VR, and XR. I also authored the Event Planning Handbook, which has since been distributed to over 500 students across five gifted Vietnamese high schools, capturing the collective knowledge of our club and making it accessible to the wider student community.
Leading Eventopia taught me the value of contributing to something larger than myself. By guiding my peers, mentoring new members, and shaping ambitious events, I helped cultivate a culture of creativity and professionalism that will extend beyond the club. Watching the talent, energy, and dedication of the team turn ideas into tangible experiences made me proud to play a part in shaping the future of the entertainment industry. Every success, every challenge, and every late night spent problem-solving was a reminder of the impact that collaboration and shared vision can create.
