A
one-hour video by Derringer Studio:
Introduction 16 min
Nectar (Deuru m'ek Kretes) 18 min
Smiling Aphrodite (Poikilothron' ) 25 min
"Saffire presents an intense, deeply-felt, and
closely-read interpretation of some of Sappho's most moving lyrics.
Students will enjoy the enthusiasm and care with which she and her colleagues
establish a sense of Sappho's texts and of the atmosphere in which Sappho
first performed them.."
| -- Page duBois |
- To hear Nectar ("Come to Me") as in video
- Steps and Stages (with images)
(a) Much of the video is lecture, spiced with personal anecdote, as in my Sappho performance-lecture. The lecture is "student-friendly." My purpose in making the video is, of course, to create interest in Sappho. But also, I want to show that learning can be joyful. In order to communicate the joy of learning, I wear my scholarship as lightly as possible. Learned references seem to be made in passing. The point is always: enjoyment of Sappho's songs.
(b) I also play the role of Sappho and sing. Here I am singing Nectar. I am holding a lyre for visual effect. The sound you hear is actually that of a tamboura. (To play a tamboura, you need only strum a drone continually, which suits my level of ability.)
(c) I have named the characters for my own pleasure. This is Anaktoria and Atthis. In Sappho # 96 (Sardis), Sappho sings about how the friend in Sardis (presumably Anaktoria) delighted in "your" (presumably Atthis') song. Toward the end of the song, Sappho describes how the friend in Sardis paces as she remembers Atthis with longing.
In reality, Anaktoria is played by Selanna, my daughter, whom I named for Moon in Sappho's dialect. Atthis is played by Miki Pike, who was one of my students at Butler.
(d)"And down through quivering leaves drifts
a magic sleep."
Anaktoria and Atthis are shown sleeping to illustrate a verse of Nectar.
(e) This is a suggestion that Sappho might have taught the girls/women in her circle to weave garlands. As stated in the video: "There's been a theory for a long time that Sappho ran a kind of a school. And then people ask, well what did she teach in that school? Was it a finishing school? Did she teach cooking? What did she teach? Decorating? How to drape your clothes? How to charm people, how to sing poetry, create poetry, possibly even sexual subjects? Nobody knows. Nobody even knows whether she had one."
I DO believe Sappho taught, officially or unofficially. She has the attitude of a teacher. For example, in Campbell # 81 (su de stephanois, o Dika) Sappho advises those in her circle to wear garlands in their hair since the Graces turn away from the unadorned.
(f) Andromeda, Dika, and Gongyla are sitting on a blanket. This illustrates the remark: "We all know that Sappho had a circle of friends. She says, 'I'm going to sing a song to delight my dear companions.' Well, her dear companions, are they only young girls, or are they women her own age as well?"
Sappho sees Andromeda as a rival. In Campbell # 57 Sappho derides Andromeda as "not knowing how to pull her rags over her ankles." (Is this a suggestion that Sappho taught women how to dress? Perhaps wearing Greek clothes was an art, like the art of wearing a sari in India.)
Notice that Dika is wearing a scarf rather than a garland. Actually, she is Erin Davis, who was a librarian at Butler who studied Greek. Andromeda is Diane Werblo, a Latin teacher, who created our costumes. And Gongyla is Tracy Paczykowski, a Butler student.
(g) This is a scene to illustrate Smiling Aphrodite (Poikilothrone'), Sappho's song about a love which is not returned. Dika accepts a necklace from Andromeda after rejecting a gift from Sappho. Sappho looks on wistfully, before singing a prayer to Aphrodite for help.
TO ORDER VIDEO, CONTACT PAULA SAFFIRE psaffire@butler.edu
Sappho's Undying Smile is the harvest of more than twenty years of work. So many steps, so many stages! All in all, it was a warm, cooperative student-neighbor venture.
1967. Julia Budenz taught me to sing Greek poetry by using pitch marks for melody. We were both studying at Harvard.
1989. I was back in the field, after a long absence. I had a one-year job at the University of Georgia. Rick LaFleur said he heard I sang Greek poetry, and asked would I please sing something at the department Christmas party. Being an eager beaver, I put my all into this. I sang Sappho's "Poikilothrone" (#1). Rick was so taken that he allotted the last of department funds for me to make an instructional video. There was enough money for three cameras but NONE for editing. What a sweat! Have you ever tried speaking for half-an hour without hesitation or mistakes?
1991. I was giving a talk at Franklin Marshall College on Sappho. I expected to sing in Greek as usual, but Joel Farber said some listeners would not know Greek. So I made up a special singing translation. I was amazed. I felt MORE Sapphic rather than less, singing in English. I suppose it was because I was doing what Sappho had done: singing in native tongue, so that the song could be immediately understood, not filtered through "translating mind." I was hooked.
1991. John Trout at Hanover College was the first brave soul to invite me for a "performance-lecture," as I call it. For the first time I wore stage clothes. I deliberately dressed dramatically and wore red lipstick. The audience seemed fairly mesmerized: heads did not move except to track my movement on stage. I was "hooked" again - this time on performance!
1995. I met Diane Werblo, a Latin teacher from Indianapolis. I mentioned to her that I am trained in traditinal Thai healing massage. She offered to trade a costume for some massage sessions. It had never occurred to me to dress as Sappho, but -- hey -- why not? (Diane has a costume-making business. You can contact her if you want any sort of Greek or Roman costume.)
1996. I began to perform in my Sappho costume. I remember saying at one performance that I could not sing Sappho's song on old age (# 58, "My hair has turned white") with full integrity, since I was coloring my hair. Well, eventually I stopped coloring my hair. And also I began to notice the fatigue of performance-travel. I became aware that I might not continue forever. And I realized I wanted to leave something behind.
Along came John Blankenship -- friend, neighbor, filmmaker -- with a suggestion: why don't we make a video together? I wonder whether he regrets those words. We have worked like slaves ever since, and we almost ended our friendship on the day of the big shoot.
This is John. He and his production company, Derringer Studio, were such
an important part of the project from start to finish.
1996. I applied for a substantial grant from Butler University for the video and was turned down because it was not "creative." (What!? Every detail in a video takes creativity. Had I been in the school of Performing Arts, this kind of creativity would have brought me funding; but as a classicist, I could be funded only for research.)
Albert Steiner generously
rescued the project. He gave us modest funding from the Classics
Department budget.
1997. First came the indoor filming. John and I tried to shoot the same material twice, once close in and once further away, so we could intersperse for visual variety. Actually, I never did say the same thing twice, and so splicing was quite a process. Also, we discovered later that my scarf had rearranged itself between versions! So if you look closely, you will see that sometimes I speak with a "hole" in the scarf, other times not.
We were worried about copyright permission and so stayed away from published images. Here my mother's marble statue of Aphrodite came in handy. (I remember once my son, at the age of three, refused to go into his grandmother's bedroom. Why? It turned out he was afraid because the statue had no arms!)
Next we filmed some outdoor archival material: all the songs I was currently singing. For this I got make-up lessons from a pro. The archival version of Smiling Aphrodite is used in the video.
Finally came the day of the grand shoot: women and girls dressed
in Greek costume in the park which borders my house.
Diane brought flowers for the altar and costumes for all the girls. Bernie Barcio gave us some altar supplies. I provided food. Kind people from the neighborhood helped. One boy babysat our cameras while we took a short break. Neighbors Steve Duncan and Steve Gwinn helped with the camera work. Bob Ward, who had been an indispensable help with the indoor shooting, also eased innumerable difficulties in the outdoors.
Here are Selanna and Miki relaxing and talking while lighting is being
checked. Steve Duncan and Bob Ward are holding light reflectors.
Here, Bob Ward is laying out the wooden track to hold the camera, which
rolled on a wheel chair -- all John's devising. John (with his back
in view) filmed the entire shoot. As I said, this was a shoestring operation,
and I am awed at the results. Other videos may be more polished,
but I am convinced that for ratio of polish to cost, this video wins hands
down. Only the genius of John Blankenship could have produced THIS video
on THAT grant.
1998-2000. John and I put the project down for a while. There was a mixture of disappointment and outrage on both our parts over misunderstandings the day of the shoot. After a cooling-off period, we got our heads together to do the editing.
Whew! John had warned me that for every minute on screen, there is an hour of editing. I never believed him. Now I do! The amount of time we spent editing -- and the tediousness of it -- was unbelievable.
I had to make scripts of all versions, then try to put the versions together. I tried to do this by cutting-and-pasting but learned that what goes together verbally does not always go together visually. For every join there was editing. I AM impressed that some of my glitches, and my endless "uh's," could be cut!
Natalie Richert helped John with the final editing. She is a talented person who was devoted to the project. I am told that when Natalie and John got fed up with the tedium, they created a video file of the absolutely worst shots of me, in case they ever need it for blackmail!
So here you have it, folks -- whoever of you has persevered to the end!
I hope I have "done Sappho proud." I DO know that students enjoy the video.
Paula Saffire
Butler University, Classics Department
4600 Sunset Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46208
Office: 317-940-9864 Home: 317-257-0537
http://blue.butler.edu/~psaffire/sappho.html