Writer and Composer: Kirsty Ferguson-Lewis
Director: Selwin Hulme-Teague
In Homer’s Odyssey, the Sirens sing a song so exquisite and irresistible that any sailor who hears it is overcome with longing. Thus enchanted, the sailor steers his ship toward the source of the music, only to be wrecked on the rocky coast. In her 40-minute piece Sirena, composer, performer, and producer Kirsty Ferguson-Lewis seeks to reimagine the myth from a feminist perspective in what the show blurb describes as “subversive contemporary opera”. Conceived during studies at Goldsmiths University and first seen in 2022, Ferguson-Lewis’s show blends voice, dance, and dreamy pop-infused electronic music with hints of performance art.
The week-long run at The Glitch forms part of the venue’s Vault Creative Arts programme and coincides with the launch of a studio recording of the show. Classically voice-trained Ferguson-Lewis is accompanied in the form of a Greek chorus by Italian actor and singer, Ilenia Cipollari and German-born musician and performer Franziska Böhm.
The trio’s costumes, long flowing sky blue robes wrapped around the body and held fast with belts of electric cord, hint at a Greek theme. A later addition adds dresses made from fishing nets. Beyond the visual clues, any obvious connection with Homeric myth is hard to detect. These are decidedly up-to-date Sirens. In one song, Ferguson-Lewis seems to be playing the part of an online sex-worker, selling a menu of services to a punter by the name Finance300. “Let me tell you about all the men I meet on the internet”, she sings as she opens her laptop and starts a Zoom call. The chorus assures her she is “great at virtual kisses”.
Soon, the character takes on the wealthy Finance300, who, as a sugar daddy, “is generous and good with his bank”. Inevitably, “sweetness turns to sour”, leading her to lament, “I’m witness to my ancient sorrow”, though the exact nature of the ancient sorrow is not clear.
“It’s hard to date when your voice is a narcotic”, she complains, but despite the encumbrance, she soon finds a boyfriend. “I’d rather kiss you than go to work”, she tells us, a sentiment not necessarily restricted to feminists, one supposes. Other songs include one set in what seems to be a circus dressing room, another that appears to involve washing robes at a laundry, and one that is sung in Latin.
Ferguson-Lewis has an attractive stage presence and a clear, fresh tone to her voice, but the acoustics of The Glitch make it hard to catch many of the lyrics, adding to the piece’s occasionally impenetrable air. Still, the harmonies are lovely, the choreography works, particularly in the ethereal opening sequence, and the trio of performers has tremendous chemistry. As a feminist response to Homer, the piece never quite emerges from its academic origins. As a collection of dreamy, electro tunes, it is a pleasant enough way to pass the time.
Runs until 21 August 2025
1 Comment
I watched Sirena yesterday and feel that you’ve overlooked the intentions of the performance so I wanted to respond to this review. The work deliberately imagines the myth from the Siren’s perspective, but within the realities of modern womanhood and the contemporary dating world. You’ve mislead people with your comment on Finance 300 as the lyric is singular “let me tell you of a man I once met,” so it’s not a portrait of an online sex worker, but a Siren seduced by a sugar daddy’s wealth, and the ancient sorrow seems to refer to the age-old female experience of men to prizing youth and beauty while withholding true, real intimacy.
Similarly, you comment on one of the songs in a circus dressing room and fail to acknowledge how this underscores the Siren’s existence as a perpetual performer, valued only when dazzling and quickly discarded when something younger and newer arrives. This connects directly back to Homer, where Siren’s voice enchants men, but also ensures her life long isolation. Her other songs highlight her ambivalence as she is drawn in again and again toward the hope of genuine love even though she is trapped in cycles of commodification and disposability.
Taken together, these episodes form a coherent feminist re-reading of the myth. The Siren is not a supernatural predator but a woman searching for love, endlessly reduced to her surface qualities and punished for using the very tools men respond to. Far from lacking connection to Homer, I feel that it transforms the myth’s dynamics into an incisive commentary on desire, power, and gender in the present day.
If anyone reads the above review, I would hope they take it with a few pinches of salt.