Minoan Snake Goddesses in Oxford: Performance and Poetry
4 July 2023
The second public event of 'The Many Lives of a Snake Goddess' project was generously hosted on June 12th 2023 in Oxford by the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD) in conjunction with the exhibition Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth and Reality in the Ashmolean Museum, curated by Andrew Shapland. The event comprised an introductory talk; a reading by Ruth Padel of her set of fifteen poems (commissioned specially for the project) about the Snake Goddess figurines; and finally, a panel discussion with the audience. In addition, we were pleased to share a booklet with the text of Ruth's poems and some of the other new work commissioned as part of the project - more on that below!
The short talk, first of all, set the scene, briefly recounting the history of the figurines, which were discovered at Knossos in 1903 by Sir Arthur Evans. We then considered their modern receptions, focusing in on examples of performance in drama, opera and dance - as was appropriate to the APGRD venue. These served to illustrate some of the rich layers of reception, ranging from inspiration for costumes to the representations of the Snake Goddess in specific narratives and performances, such as in Harrison Birtwistle's opera Minotaur (2008), Ted Shawn's dance Gnossienne (1919), and Marina Abramović's performance art piece at the opening of The Biography Remix (2005).
Alongside study of the archaeology of the objects and their reception to date, the MLSG project has also been commissioning new work from writers and other specialists, including people with sensory impairments, inviting them to develop their own readings of these objects in a multi-sensory approach. We were delighted to share the first fruits of this work in the booklet provided at the event: Karly Allen’s audio description of one figurine, which provides access for blind and partially sighted people; second, Lucia van der Drift’s piece on ‘mindful looking’ which applies ‘mindfulness technique’ to the figurines; third, as we are keen to give voice and agency to those with sensory impairments, we commissioned the blind writer Tanvir Bush to share reflections from her perspective. In her pieces, she explores the process of piecing together meaning from surviving fragments (as archaeologists do), while dealing with the brain’s desperate and doomed attempts of making sense by generating hallucinations (Charles Bonnet Syndrome).
The booklet also includes, of course, Ruth Padel’s poems. These have been translated into modern Greek by Kalia Baklitzanak, and deaf actor Zoë McWhinney will translate two poems into British Sign Language, namely those two that have a visual impact on the page (poems 8 and 13 in the booklet). Each of these commissions and recreations are bringing new insights into how these figurines may be seen, sensed, and interpreted.
Ruth then read her poems to an enthralled audience - contextualising them with her unique perspective of having excavated on Crete as a student, and having intimate familiarity with the people, culture and history of the island. Thus, her poems engage closely and vividly with the archaeology of the figurines as well as injecting them with her own memories - from her personal encounters with snakes with the Irula people in India as research for earlier writing (Where The Serpent Lives, 2010) to much more contemporary and quirkier points of stimulus: conversation with her personal trainer, advertising for the TV series Serpent Queen, and Christmas tree ornaments.
A panel discussion with our in-person audience followed with Ruth joined by the MLSG team: Ellen Adams (KCL); Nicoletta Momigliano (Bristol); Christine Morris (TCD); Andrew Shapland (Oxford), followed by more stimulating conversation afterwards over tea and cakes.
Warmest thanks to APGRD Director Fiona Mcintosh for hosting us in Oxford.
The event was recorded and you can catch up on it here: