On the evening of Saturday, September 23rd, a friend and I attended an event as a part of the city-wide Art Night Athens. Starting at 20:00, attendees gathered in the Megaron garden, to hear the voices of over 200 participants, as they read, sang, chanted, and embellished the words of Homer’s The Odyssey.

The event was scheduled to last all through the night, ending around 06:00 the next morning. Attendees and participant readers were encouraged to come and go as they needed, or even sleep in the garden. While I was only able to stay for about 2 hours, I listened to 25 very unique and very well spoken individuals, all from different cultural backgrounds, as they communicated these verses through English, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew, and Sign Language, just to name a few.

The leaders of the event gave a wonderful dedication to the many struggling refugees in Athens and around the globe, which only reinforced my faith in the power of a collective people, when we only set aside our differences, and come together to serve a greater cause. While this reading of The Odyssey most definitely served a purpose of literary appreciation, it even more so served as an example of these connections that have the power to unite us through common goals of compassion and love.

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Click to watch the full stream of the Odyssey – A Nightlong participatory reading: part 1 | part 2 | part 3| part 4 | part 5