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Hellenic Studies Folio #9 from the Center for Hellenic Studies

March 17, 2021
With a landscape in the background, Sappho stands with her lyre while three companions recline and listen.
With a landscape in the background, Sappho stands with her lyre while three companions recline and listen.
"Sappho" (1981), by Amanda Brewster Sewell (1859–1926); Palace of Fine Arts. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Place and Space in Performance

  • Can the poetry of Sappho and the performance of it be said to depend on connections to specific locations?
  • How do performers in a virtual/online performance relate to space and to each other?
  • How do poems of Vassilis Vassilikos relate to place differently than do poems of Sappho?

Discussion of the figure of Sappho as a leader of singing and dancing oriented on the sacred precinct of Hera at Messon on the island of Lesvos

Essay of approximately 4,100 words.

Α drawing of Sappho.
Sappho in the role of leader

Digital performance of Pindar's Pythian 8, with commentary by Gregory Nagy

Video of approximately 19 minutes. As you watch this video, be attentive to the kind of effects that are produced by the techniques that are used to signal connection to space (techniques such as the virtual background).

"Extra credit" reading:

Three poems by Vassilis Vassilikos; approximately 700 words (both Greek and English). Read these poems and compare them with the poems of Sappho discussed in the essay above.

Learn more about the Hellenic Studies Folios and the previous installments of the series.