An immersive retelling by women artists

Song of the Siren

The truth, emerging.

Before she was a temptress, she was a keeper of knowledge. We have come to give her back her song.

Daniela & Rhiannon Catalyst

Bring it to your space Read the deck (PDF, opens in a new tab)

A Greek terracotta siren: a bird's body with a smiling woman's face and long braided hair — Terracotta siren, Greek, c. 550–500 BCE

The retelling

For fifteen centuries she was told as a temptress who wrecks men.

That is not who she was.

The first sirens were winged singers who kept watch where the living meet the dead, and who offered travelers one gift: knowledge. The fish tail, the mirror and the blame came much later. We use the real art and the real texts to let the truth emerge.

A small terracotta mourning siren with wings, hands raised to her head — Mourning siren, Cyprus, c. 3rd century BCE

Song of the Siren · II

I · The original siren

Wings, not a tail

Her body

A bird with a woman's face

Greek artists of the 8th to 6th centuries BCE shaped her as a bird, some early ones even bearded.

Her place

Keeper of the threshold

She stood on tombs as mourner and guide, where the living meet the dead.

An Egyptian ba bird with a human head and a sun disk

Her ancestor

The soul in flight

Egypt drew the ba, the traveling soul, as a human-headed bird. Many see her root here.

Song of the Siren · III

The evidence, in clay

On the vessels, she flies

A painted bowl with a winged siren in the center — Bowl, Boeotia, mid-6th century BCE

A painted plate fragment showing a siren with spread wings — Plate fragment, Clazomenae, 6th century BCE

A black drinking cup with a small painted siren medallion — Drinking cup, Athens, c. 550–540 BCE

Song of the Siren · IV · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access

A painted Greek jar fragment showing two bird-bodied sirens — Sirens on a jar fragment, Athens, c. 575–550 BCE

II · What Homer actually wrote

Her song was a promise of knowledge

In Odyssey Book 12 the sirens call Odysseus by name. They do not offer love. They offer to tell him all that happened at Troy, and all that happens anywhere on earth.

The danger was not desire. It was the hunger to know.

Song of the Siren · V

A seated marble Muse, draped, gazing down — Seated Muse, Roman, 1st–2nd century CE

III · Her lineage

Daughters of a Muse

Born of song and water

Ancient writers name their mother as a Muse and their father as the river god Achelous.

Persephone's companions

Ovid says they asked for wings to search land and sea for her after she was taken below.

Rivals of the Muses

They lost a singing contest to the Muses, who wore their plucked feathers as crowns.

They had names

Parthenope, Ligeia, Leucosia: single voices, not a faceless chorus.

Song of the Siren · VI

IV · The sound of the cosmos

Eight sirens sing the universe into harmony

At the close of Plato's Republic, the cosmos turns on eight spinning spheres. A siren rides each one and sings a single note. Together the eight notes make one harmony: the music of the universe itself.

Not a hazard. The soundtrack of creation.

A gilded silver celestial globe with clockwork, held up by a winged horse — Celestial globe with clockwork, 1579

Song of the Siren · VII

V · Music answers music

When the Argonauts sailed past, Orpheus answered with a song of his own

In the Argonautica, the hero who survives the sirens is not a man tied to a mast. He is a musician. Orpheus plays his lyre and holds the crew with his own song.

We do not silence her. We answer her, and let the room hear what she was really singing.

A marble statue of Orpheus playing a stringed instrument — Orpheus, marble, Rome, 1600–1601

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VI · The rewrite

How she lost her wings

700–500 BCEBird-women guard tombs and fly across vases.
550–450 BCEOdysseus at the mast still faces winged singers.
400–200 BCEMourning sirens stand on graves, singing lament.
Greek & RomanA rare few fish-tailed images appear, as exceptions.
600s–700s CEThe Book of Monsters first writes her as a fish-tailed sea girl.
1100s–1600sBestiaries hand her a comb, a mirror and the blame for lust.

For most of her recorded life, she had feathers. The seductress is the newcomer.

Song of the Siren · IX

Same name, two thousand years apart

From singer to seductress

The smiling terracotta siren with a bird's body — Terracotta siren, Greece, c. 550–500 BCE

A bronze siren with a crown and a forked fish tail — Bronze siren, Europe, c. 1600

Song of the Siren · X · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access

VII · A city built on her song

Naples was first named Parthenope

Legend says the siren Parthenope washed ashore where Naples now stands. The city took her name, kept her tomb, and honored her with offerings and torch races. Here she was a protector, worshipped, not feared.

Museums are reclaiming her

In 2026 the National Archaeological Museum of Naples staged Parthenope: The Siren and the City, borrowing the British Museum's Siren Vase. Song of the Siren brings that story to life, in sound.

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The experience

A journey in five movements

I
Threshold
Guests cross in past guardian sirens, carried by low drones.
Sound · Art
II
The Telling
The true story, told over the ancient art itself.
Storytelling
III
The Song
Rhiannon sings the siren's song of knowledge over live production.
Voice · Production
IV
The Spheres
A sound bath in eight notes, after Plato's singing cosmos.
Sound healing
V
The Return
The answering song: a DJ set rising from ritual into dance.
DJ set

Running time 4 hours · Seated, reclining and standing · Shaped to each venue

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The artists

Told entirely by women

The Sunrise Queen

Daniela

DJ, producer and creative director. Founder of Deep Playa NYC and the all-female platform Her Name Is Shakti. Music Director for CAMP Festival 2023–2025, and commissioned by Philadelphia's Mütter Museum for a four-hour Halloween performance.

More about Daniela · @daniela_starcat (opens in a new tab)

The Mythic Storyteller

Rhiannon Catalyst

Vocalist, immersive artist and producer with 25 years of tours and events. Music Director of the legendary Lunatarium at 21. Toured the NASA-data immersive show Bella Gaia and opened Yuri's Night beneath the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

rhiannoncatalyst.com (opens in a new tab) · @rhiannoncatalyst (opens in a new tab)

Joined by selected women visual artists and sound healers from Daniela and Rhiannon's circle of collaborators.

Song of the Siren · XIII

Who we create with