It seems like a fairytale come true for most, but the television personality and ballet dancer says her new life has not changed her, writes Nur Zarina Othman
EVERY little girl grows up dreaming of becoming a princess but not Che Puan Amelia Thripura Henderson. She had a different dream altogether. The 21-year-old actress, television host and model wanted to be a ballet dancer.
And she did become one, albeit for a short while. But it remained her destiny to become a princess when she married Tunku Harunnarasheed Putra from the Kedah royal family on Aug 14, 2015.
THE BALLERINA
Amelia walks out of the Presidential Suite at Westin Hotel Kuala Lumpur in a blue tutu with gold trimmings. She last wore the outfit in 2013 when she represented Malaysia at the 15th Asia Pacific Dance Competition in Manila, The Philippines.
There, she won the silver for the Under-18 Classical Ballet, a bronze for the Under-18 Modern Jazz and received an honourable mention for the Under-18 Lyrical.
She sits down on the carpeted floor and deftly wraps the two bands of one of the pointe shoes around her left ankle and then, the right. Her mother, Dr Jaya Rudralingam, who had helped her get dressed earlier, is taking photographs with a mobile phone.
“We didn’t have any photos of her at the competition. The organisers said they were going to send the photos. We paid for them too, but the pictures were not sent,” she says.
Amelia started ballet lessons at a very young age. She was 3 years old when she wore her first leotard and ballet slippers. She kept a daily routine of ballet dancing and training until she was 14. She had trained pretty hard to achieve what she had in ballet. “It was very hard to train for ballet in Malaysia. There were no professional instructors who could train me for competitions,” she says.
Despite the difficulty, Amelia participated in dance competitions and won awards. Perhaps the most prestigious was a one-week scholarship to the Cecchetti International Residential Summer Ballet School in Melbourne, Australia when she received the President’s Award at the Dance Society of Malaysia’s 14th Solo Classical Ballet Competition in 2009.
She also gained the highest distinction in ballet, having completed the Solo Seal Award in 2013. Amelia is probably the first Malaysian to complete it. The award is a true test of a dancer’s abilities and is the highest Vocational Graded examination, focusing on solo performance.
She owes her success to her mother, a dentist with a private practice, who was always with her for training, fittings and competitions, both locally and internationally. “She’s very understanding and she has always been there for me,” says Amelia. Even now, Dr Jaya still accompanies her daughter to events.
As Amelia undertakes several moves to warm up before the photo shoot, she turns to Dr Jaya and asks if she should do the split position. “I think I can still do it. Shall I try?” she asks. She does, and executes it ever so gracefully.
It has been three years since Amelia danced. She packed up tutu and pointe shoes in 2013 following a back injury. Today, she teaches ballet for Grades Pre-Primary to Advanced 2.
She executes some simple moves for our photographer, Munirah Abdul Ghani. It is obvious that she’s enjoying herself. “I love ballet. I miss it,” she says simply.
THE PRINCESS
“When one door closes, another door opens,” so said Alexander Graham Bell, an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone. But there is more to Bell’s quote. “But we so often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
Having to quit ballet, something she loved most, was probably the hardest thing for Amelia but she was not going to allow it to hold her back.
She plunged herself back into the entertainment industry. “I had to cut back but I never actually left. I still do voice-overs, commercials and modelling as these do not take too much of my time,” she says.
Her first break in the entertainment industry could very well be the Peter Pan Musical in 2007. Hong Kong-based Aba Productions, which brought the musical to Istana Budaya, Kuala Lumpur held auditions for Malaysians aged 9 -14 to play the fairies.
Amelia was only 12 when she found out about the audition through the newspapers. She wanted to be a fairy. Any fairy would do, she thought. Then she was offered the role of Tinkerbell.
“I had so much fun during the audition; it did not even feel like I was in one. I still remember when the crew harnessed me to the rigging equipment to make me ‘fly’,” she recalls.
Amelia has taken part in some 10 plays or musicals, including the lead role in the Actors Studio production of Vision 2020 in 2001 and as a princess in The King And I in 2007. She has also appeared in some 50 commercials since 2008 and in television shows such as Millennium Child, Warna Ungu, Keluarga Adam and A Tropical Christmas.
Last year, Amelia appeared in a three-act play alongside Gavin Yap and Douglas Lim. Her character, Karen, was very challenging as she had monologue scenes. Another test of her ability as an actress was in the local interpretation of David Mamet’s Speed-The-Plow.
It was at an event where she was the emcee that she first met her husband, Tunku Harunnarasheed Putra. The couple tied the knot more than a year after they first met.
There were mixed reactions to the marriage as she was considered a commoner and he, a prince. But that has not changed who she is.
“Marriage has not changed anything. I am still me, I still need to clean up after myself, pay the bills and do what regular people do,” she says.
The self-proclaimed “boring person” says that being married to royalty has not affected her life much as she is the “stay at home, drinking coffee” type. “Nothing to change there,” she says with a laugh.
She has nothing against girls dreaming about being princesses. She believes every girl is a princess. “We are all princesses to our parents. In this day and age, a girl doesn’t need a man to be a princess. If you want to be a princess, look in the mirror and give yourself the confidence, then you’re already a princess.”
Amelia in Seven
1. What I can’t leave the house without?:
Mobile phone.
2. My ultimate favourite shoes:
A pair of chunky heels which gives me height and is super comfy.
3. I feel most relaxed when:
At home, in front of the television, drinking my coffee and with my face mask on.
4. Movie I would watch repeatedly:
I do not like watching movies repeatedly as I am easily bored but I wouldn’t mind watching The Prestige again.
5. Pick-me-up song:
Techno music. I like it especially when driving.
6. If I can only put on one beauty product, I would put on:
Concealer which will help me hide under-eye bags.
7. My favourite time of the day:
At night. I am not a morning person who gets my work done during the day but at night, that is my “me time”.