Scene 1: Jimmy
the Fat One
Athens 1948. The Second World War is over, but the Civil War is raging in Greece. We're at the club "Tzimis o Hontros," Jimmy the Fat One. The room is full of smoke. It used to be hashish, but now it is only tobacco; I think. The place is packed. Sitting at tables scattered around the room are not sailors, bums, criminals, loose men and women, the lower class manges (tough guys, smartasses), like it used to be. These are more aristocratic, quiet, "decent" people. More in line with society, one could say. Against the wall the musicians are sitting in a row: a guitarist, a violinist, a baglama player, and two bouzouki players, one of which is the famous Vassilis Tsitsanis, the godfather of Greek music. They're playing taximia (improvisations) and waiting for the singer to come. To sing rembetika music. The music of the outsiders. The Greek blues.
Rembetika was brought to the big cities by refugees from Asia Minor and Pontus in the 1920s after The Asia Minor Catastrophe. Almost 700,000 Ottoman Greeks died and almost all the rest were uprooted because of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. They had to leave everything except their instruments. Suddenly there were 1.5 million refugees in Greece who were left without a home and a clear future. They had to begin all over again. It was a tough life—lots of drugs, prison sentences, and poverty. They started to sing their own tunes based on eastern rhythms and western music. In the ‘30s their music was forbidden under the rule of dictator Metaxas, but they kept singing—about prison, hash, cocaine, heroine, the trips, addiction, poverty, streetlife, but also a lot about love and broken hearts. The rebetes didn't sing about politics. They kept away from that world. They lived in their parallel world, their subculture, with their own dialect, lifestyle, look, and music. They were poor, but they acted like they were rich, always wearing beautiful suits, hats, moustaches—real manges. Who did exactly as they pleased.
It was a man's world, but they were waiting for her. The only woman on stage. The singer.
Twenty-seven years old, short black hair slicked backwards, dark playful eyes, big dazzling smile, a dark suit and a turtle neck, a cigarette, deep voice, proud: Sotiria Bellou.
ΔΕΝ ΛΕΣ ΚΟΥΒΕΝΤΑ
Δε λες κουβέντα,
κρατάς κρυμμένα μυστικά
και ντοκουμέντα
κι ακούω μόνο
συνθήματα μεταλλικά
των μικροφώνων
Ξέρω τ’ όνομά σου
την εικόνα σου και πάλι από την αρχή
ψάχνω για μια διέξοδο γυρεύοντας
μια αλλιώτικη ζωή
YOU DON'T SAY A SINGLE WORD
You don’t say a single word
you keep hidden secrets
and documents
I hear only
the metal slogans
of the microphones
I know your name
your image and then again
from the start
I seek for a way out, searching
for a different life
Scene 2: No
Surrender
Trying to find a way out, to live a different life. That's what the song says. And that's exactly what Sotiria Bellou did. She was one of the first rebetisses and one of the most famous ones.
She was born in 1921 in a village 85 kilometres from Athens, the eldest child of two grocers. She started singing when she was just 3 years old. Her grandfather was a priest who used to take her to church to sing byzantine hymns.
Some people are never silent—Sotiria was one of them. Her mother didn't like it at all.
"What, you want to become a singer? Tha se tsakiso sto xilo, kale!" (I will beat the hell out of you!)
But Sotiria answered with confidence.
"That's exactly what I'm going to be. I'm going to be a singer and I'm going to be a big one."
Luckily, Sotiria’s father supported her. He was fond of her, being his first born. He brought her to the cinema so she could see "The Little Refugee Girl" starring Sophia Vembo. She adored the movie, which fueled her desire to become a singer, and she mimicked the songs and dances of Vembo every day. Her father also bought her a guitar—well, Sotiria kind of forced him to buy it for her, but he did. When she sang her first song with the guitar, he was so proud that he bought her a straw hat with strawberries on top.
She was ζωηρη, fierce. Although Sotiria’s father loved her, there was the rest of the world with their opinions, gender biases and of course his wife ... so, he married her off when she was 17. He tried to tame her—that was a mistake. She didn't want to be ordered around by anyone. She wanted to make her own decisions.
Her new husband didn't agree with the way Sotiria wanted to live her life. He was an alcoholic who beat her. When Sotiria found out he was cheating on her, she decided she had had enough. She marched down to the bar where he was drinking and threw acid on his face. Lucky for him, he was wearing sunglasses. She was very fierce indeed. And she had anger issues, to say the least.
For this, Sotiria spent four months in prison. But even after she returned home it was hard. There was too much gossip—Sotiria was all over the newspapers. The family couldn't take the shame. They restricted her movements which was really hard for Sotiria, and after a lot of fighting and repeatedly being beaten by her family members, she took the train to Athens. The day she left was the same day that Italy declared war on Greece: October 28, 1940. It is now known as Oxi Day, “The ‘No’ Day.” Metaxas refused to surrender to Mussolini by saying a simple, "No." Greeks are still very proud of that—Greeks do not surrender easily. And neither did Sotiria.
It was the beginning of the Second World War, but also the beginning of a new life for Sotiria. She started doing odd jobs and singing and playing the guitar wherever she could. She got involved in the resistance movement against the Axis occupation of Greece, which landed her in jail a few times, and even tortured. During the Civil War between the leftists and the Greek government forces—the first conflicts of the Cold War—she was still an outspoken activist and supported the same leftists who resisted the Germans. And again she ended up in jail.
Then one day in 1947, Vassilis Tsitsanis heard her sing. He was blown away. That talent, that deep, emotional voice, but at the same time so down to earth. He immediately wrote two songs for her: "When You're Drinking at the Taverna" and "The Boy You Used to Date." They started singing together at Jimmy the Fat One, and a partnership was born.
Scene 3: The
Smoky Room
and the Married
Woman
Nothing about Sotiria's life was conventional—the way she looked (masculine style in dress), the way she gambled (a lot), the way she loved. She never said she was a lesbian, but she never pretended to be anything else. She lived with a woman and didn't hide it. In the '50s it was unheard of for a woman to live such an uncompromising life. Even now I can hardly name a Greek singer who is open about his or her homosexuality. And there was Sotiria defying gender and beauty norms and living just as she pleased almost 60 years ago.
She allowed herself to openly charm women with her dazzling, big smile and beautiful voice. Like tonight. She's flirting with the captain's daughter. The dark beauty from Alexandria seems to like it. A lot. There is something about Sotiria’s self confidence—something quite appealing. Exciting. Sexy. The captain’s daughter always sits neatly next to her husband at the front. She's holding a strand of her long black hair, her eyes fixated on Sotiria, her leg crossed over her knee, showing a little bit too much skin. Sotiria knows that the husband is watching them closely, but she doesn't care. She will sing for the captain's daughter, remembering the secret kisses they shared in the alley, oh so many times. But the games the captain's daughter plays with her heart ... ai ai ai.
ΤΟ ΓEΛΕΚΑΚΙ
Το γελεκάκι, που φορείς,
εγώ στο 'χω ραμμένο,
με πίκρες και με βάσανα
στο 'χω φοδραρισμένο.
Με πήρε ο ύπνος κι έγειρα
στου καραβιού την πλώρη
και ήρθε και με ξύπνησε
του καπετάνιου η κόρη
Άντε το μαλώνω, το μαλώνω
άντε κι ύστερα το μετανιώνω
άντε το μαλώνω και το βρίζω
άντε την καρδούλα του ραγίζω
Φόρα το μωρό μου
φόρα το μικρό μου
γιατί δε θα το ξαναφορέσεις άλλο πια
φόρα τo για να σαι, για να με θυμάσαι
για μετάξι έχω τα σγουρά σου τα μαλλιά
THE LITTLE JACKET
The little jacket you wear
I have made for you
with tears and distress
I have added a lining to it
I fell asleep and I leaned
by the ship's prow
and came and woke me up
the captain's daughter
And I scold it, I scold it
and then I regret it
I scold it and I curse it
and I break up his heart
Wear it my love
Wear it my babe
because you won't wear it anymore
wear it so you can remember me
For silk, I have your curly hair
Scene 4: She,
Me, and the
Rest
It's one of my favourite songs. Singing about a broken heart with such a merry melody, it is healing: ‘this little jacket I made just for you, and now that you broke my heart, I hope that by wearing this jacket you will never forget me.’
I love this music so much. I listened to it from a young age. The free-spirited tunes and macho style have always appealed to me. I love to dance the solitary, drunk dance that goes with it, the zeibekiko. Taking my space on the floor and cursing life and love, and at the same time embracing it: the paradox of Greek music and life itself. It's all about living in the moment. In a cool way. I was born and raised in a Greek family here in the Netherlands, but I feel like there's a little Greek macho person in me that needs to get out—a rebetis.
In the present I can romanticize it, but the life of a rebetis wasn't a romantic life at all. And Sotiria's life was a rough life. I don't want to go to prison. I don't want to be beaten up. But her voice, her desire to sing, the song that had to come out—the fact that she did that on her terms in that time, defying Greek norms of female behaviour—that is what is revolutionary. That is what stays: to be no secret.
That is exactly why she inspires me: she reminds me not to suppress who I am like I have done in the past. I have been force-fed prescribed ideas about how a woman should be, how a Greek woman should be, how a person in the Netherlands should be, how I should or should not express my desires, and longings, how I should dress, walk and talk. How much space I should take up in the world.
And now, 21 years after her death, the fascists are knocking on the door again. To be different is always tricky in these circumstances. How many people dare to defy conventional norms openly? “Just be yourself!” Not easy for everyone. When does the revolution start? When you don't care what people think or say about you? Or maybe you do care, but you do it anyway. Remember: another life is possible.
ΔΕΝ ΛΕΣ ΚΟΥΒΕΝΤΑ
Δε λες κουβέντα
κρατάς κρυμμένα μυστικά
και ντοκουμέντα
κι ακούω μόνο
συνθήματα μεταλλικά
των μικροφώνων
Ξέρω τ’ όνομά σου
την εικόνα σου και πάλι από την αρχή
ψάχνω για μια διέξοδο γυρεύοντας
μια αλλιώτικη ζωή
YOU DON'T SAY A SINGLE WORD
You don’t say a single word
you keep hidden secrets
and documents
I hear only
the metal slogans
of the microphones
I know your name
your image and then again
from the start
I seek for a way out, searching
for a different life.
Written by Soula Notos
Art by Plum Globig
Soula Notos is a second generation Greek theatermaker, comedian, actress, and storyteller living in the Netherlands. She studied Psychology and Gender Studies, before finishing theater school with the absurd western "Doctor, where do cowgirls dream about?" She toured the Netherlands with her show "Heimwee" ("Homesick") for two years. Recently she wrote her first long theatrical piece, “Who are you when no one is looking,” in which she tells expressive, energetic, poetic stories full of self-mockery about growing up with different labels and how to deal with them without losing your mind. She performed the play at the International Storytelling Festival Amsterdam, First Contact London, Storytelling Festival Prague, and Fortellerfestivalen Oslo, but also for various students at art schools (HKU Utrecht, Artez Zwolle), the School for International Training (SIT), and the University of Utrecht. She is a regular storyteller at the storytelling center Mezrab in Amsterdam, where she told the story featured here about Sotiria Bellou. The performances and comedy she makes, the myths she chooses to retell, they all have themes in common: empowerment, connection, humanization, freedom, lightness. She tells stories to connect, to change, to make people laugh. To remember.
More info: www.soula.nl