The Sounds of SIRENA Will Captivate You

The Sterling Renaissance Festival is a 7 week long event, that takes place on the weekends, featuring street actors, artisans, and stage performances meant to immerse visitors in the 1500's.

One such performance, by a trio of Triton's temptresses, will captivate you. I'm talking about:

SIRENA

Sirena is a musical/theatrical, experience that takes you back to mythical times where the sirens call would lure in shipwrecked lovers. Sailors both loved and feared them as they would become hypnotized by their song and lose their souls in the process.

While you have nothing to fear while watching Aglaope, Legeia, and Raidne move about the stage with meticulous fluidity, you will drown in their music.

As they move with grace, setting up their drums, SIRENA lures you in with dulcet tones. Passersby slow their hurried pace across the grounds and find themselves drifting to an empty bench. Once the stage is ready, SIRENA positions themselves and addresses the already entranced audience.

Silence.

Then, with a haunting tone that sends chills down your spine, the Sirens call with their purpose:

A legend stands before you all
We creatures of the sea
From the depths, you hear our call;
The voice of Sirens three
As grief can tear apart the soul
and break the heart in two
We sirens search to make ours whole
And so, we pray on you
Trust not thy vision; for it's said
"immortals ever lie,"
But follow those already dead
And you will beg to die

They are here to lure you in with songs of lost love, temptation, a suffering soul, and despair. Wearing netting and rags, accompanied by makeup that gives the appearance of water as it refracts light, their costumes add to the mystical aura. Their lips are as blue as the coral surrounding a mermaid resting at the bottom of the sea.

As they perform, they put their talents on display by singing and drumming with choreographed movements; mimicking mermaids playfully dancing by, while maintaining a deadly, yet playful, gaze on the audience.

Weaving in and around the audience, they lock eyes with the unsuspecting. If this is how the sailor's felt in the tales of old, it's easy to understand how they'd drown themselves chasing the sirens call.

It's a beautiful and mesmerizing experience that will chill you to the bone and have you cheering after each song. Writing and performing their own original music, carefully crafted for their act, one song in particular, a cover, amplifies the adrenaline as it courses through your veins.

Their performance of the traditional, "Scarborough Faire", has a calming affect similar to Simon and Garfunkel's rendition. However, it picks up the pace near the end as it reaches climax. The beating of the drums takes over, as the girls ramp up the pace with a ferocity befitting of a mermaid scorned.

SIRENA consists of Amanda Ellis, Tegan Elliott, and Sam Nolte. Together they have released 3 full length albums consisting of 17 original songs and arranged 6 traditional songs. They've even covered some of their favorite Christmas Songs.

Having worked tirelessly from 2011 to 2015 to perfect their performance, SIRENA took a 2-year hiatus to allow themselves to slow things down as life began to catch up with them. Now, they are back touring Renaissance Festivals with renewed vigor. And their performance definitely reflects that.

For now, they are tucked away in upstate New York, performing at the Sterling Renaissance Festival until August 13th. Having several performances each Saturday and Sunday, if you are within range of the sirens song, they are hard to miss.

If you become captivated, lose your soul, and spend the rest of your days chasing SIRENA, don't fret. You won't be the first to drown in their performance. And you won't be the last.

Proceed at your own peril. SIRENA is back.

*image credit: John Karpinsky