Recreate a Homeric Performance of the Odyssey on a Mediterranean Island with Kids

About The Field School of Hvar

The Field School of Hvar is an independent enrichment program located in Jelsa, on the island of Hvar, Croatia. We bring together children ages 3 through 15 from around the world for a year-round academic program grounded in experiential learning, close reading, and deep engagement with literature, history, and the natural world. Small groups, meaningful work, and genuine community are at the heart of everything we do. Our curriculum is organized based on a chronological story of Western human development. In the fall of 2026, we will be centered in pre-history and Ancient Greece.

ORAL TRADITIONS

The Odyssey is not a book. For centuries before it was written down, it performed by rhapsodes who sang whole cultures into being. The poem was a physical event: breath, rhythm, call and response, the body as instrument.

Children know this. Before they read, they are listeners and tellers — holding a story in their bodies, asking for it again, passing it on. Oral tradition isn't a primitive precursor to literacy. It is the original school, the original technology for everything a culture most needs to remember. If whales click and wolves howl, humans sing tales.

We are looking for a musician and performer who can help children inhabit a story the way the ancients did: through voice, breath, and the disciplined freedom of oral art.

The Fellowship

Role. As a "Field School Fellow" you will join our community as a participant — enrolling your own children in the program alongside other Field School families — and as a contributing expert, leading our students in the vocal and performance work at the heart of this project.

Reciprocity. In return, we offer a full scholarship covering your children's tuition for the term. We aren't able to cover travel or accommodation, so this works best for families who have the flexibility — whether that's a homeschooling lifestyle, a sabbatical year, or simply the appetite for an unconventional fall.

Storytelling. If you create content, we ask for one long-form piece (a podcast episode, Substack essay, or video) within 90 days of your residency, provided that it feels like a natural fit.

Dates. The fall session runs September 7 through November 28, 2026. You will be expected to contribute about one day each week of active rehearsal, direct instruction, and faculty consultation. In addition, this fellow will likely want to spend time in general exploration of Hvar and the world of rhapsodic performance.

THE PROJECT

Field School's fall curriculum centers on prehistory and Ancient Greece, which sometimes still feel very current on the island of Hvar. Our showcase moment will be a live rhapsodic performance of The Odyssey — drawn from a selection of books, shaped for young voices, and performed for the community at the close of the fall session.

This is not a school play. Working alongside our Ancient History Fellow, this Fellow will guide students from first encounter with the text through to public performance — teaching the fundamentals of oral delivery, call-and-response structure, and the somatic awareness that theirs is a voice worth listening to.

We are also curious about the musical dimension of ancient performance. Homeric recitation was accompanied; the aulos and the kithara were not decorative. If the Fellow has an appetite to explore what that might have sounded like — even speculatively — we are here for that experiment.

WHO WE’RE LOOKING FOR

The right Fellow is a musician and performer with experience in early music, voice, and the body as instrument — and an inclination for working with children. Formal training in early music performance, music education, or voice is a strong foundation. Experience leading children's musical productions, choral ensembles, or performance workshops is warmly welcomed.

Because rhapsodic performance is inseparable from breath and physical presence, we are interested in candidates whose practice bridges music and somatic work — teachers who have trained in Alexander technique, Feldenkrais, yoga, or related disciplines, and who understand performance as an embodied rather than purely technical act.

This is unusual territory, and we don't expect any one person to have mastered all of it. What we're looking for is someone who finds this combination exciting, and who has the skill and the warmth to bring a mixed-age group of children along with them.