Salomé

A live, dramatic percussion spectacle featuring the 1923 silent film starring Alla Nazimova with music by Charlie Barber.

Acclaimed composer Charlie Barber’s dramatic new score, inspired by traditional Arabic ensembles, is performed live by four percussionists to the silent film Salomé, starring the tempestuous, Russian-born actress Alla Nazimova.

Adapted from the controversial Oscar Wilde play Salomé, is set in the court of King Herod and follows the heroine’s ill fated desire for John the Baptist.

Nazimova’s extravagant performance in the title role along with the lavishly opulent art nouveau designs of Natacha Rambova, (the future Mrs Rudolph Valentino) make for a sumptuously fantastic piece of cinema quite unlike anything else.

With the four musicians playing from two towers flanking each side of the giant silver screen, this evening promises an exotic cocktail of rare silent cinema, sensuality, melodrama and dramatic percussion ...

“A hothouse orchid of decadent passion…You have your warning: this is bizarre stuff” – Photoplay magazine, 1923c