Charlie Barber - Salomé’s Dance (Salomé, Chapter 10)

Salomé’s Dance - from Charlie Barber’s score for percussion and voices featuring the 1923 film starring Alla Nazimova Salomé (1923) is a rarely seen curiosity from the silent era of film. Based on an idea of artist and Hollywood 1920s bohemian Natacha Rambova, the film was produced by and starred the flamboyant Russian actress, Alla Nazimova and directed by Charles Bryant. Nazimova’s intention was to produce a piece of work that would raise the artistic levels of American film. Filmed in 1923, it might be considered one of the first ’arthouse’ films to be made. An adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, it has, like the play, always been surrounded by controversy. Before it had even been completed rumours took hold that Nazimova had demanded an all gay and bi-sexual cast in homage to the playwright. Adding to its notoriety is the film’s undoubted aura of loaded eroticism, heightened by the melodramatic, highly stylised performances of the cast. The film’s visual imagery matched the illustrations made by Aubrey Beardsley and was in black and white only, having just some metallic details as accents that would thus reflect the light. As one critic commented, it is “more like a bizarre Art Nouveau-inspired erotic dream than a piece of cinema“. Hebrew text - Psalm 1, v3: v’hayah ke’etz shatul al-palgei mayim asher piryo yiten be’ito And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season Inspired by early fragments of music from Judea and Syria, this version of Salomé features an array of percussion instruments and voices. Dominated by an assortment of drums, tambourines, castanets and cymbals, the percussion battery also includes the Sistrum (a small instrument with bronze jingles used in dances and religious ceremonies in ancient Egypt), Djembe (a traditional skin-covered African drum) and Tibetan Singing Bowls. A large amount of the percussion writing is derived from ’wazn’, the fixed rhythmic patterns that are the building blocks for Arabic music from earliest times. Most wazn are in unusual time lengths such as 10, 13 or 19 - each constructed out of smaller units of long and short beats. For the Film Director - Charles Bryant Writers - Oscar Wilde (play), Peter M Winters (scenario) Cinematography - Charles Van Enger Art Direction/Costume - Natacha Rambova Cast Mitchell Lewis - Herod, Tetrach of Judea Alla Nazimova - Salomé, stepdaughter of Herod Rose Dione - Herodias, wife of Herod Earl Schenk - Narraboth, Captain of the Guard Nigel De Brulier - Jokanaan, the Prophet Arthur Jasmine - Page of Herodias Frederick Peters - Naaman, the Executioner Louis Dumar - Tigellinus, a young Roman Musicians: Nick Baron - percussion James Hulme - percussion Alun Hathaway - percussion Dave Danford - percussion Rhiannon Llewellyn - soprano Gareth Treseder - tenor Kelvin Thomas - bass and Sianed Jones - vocal improvisations More info at