Nature Theater of Oklahoma
Silent Movies Screen Test No. 1>6
cinema-theatre, preview

tuesday 16 april
Silent Movie Screen Test No. 1 (Zurich)
Featuring Ilan Bachrach, Gabel Eiben, Julie LaMendola, and Kristin Worrall. Filmed in a hotel room in Zurich by Pavol Liska. Edited by Kelly Copper in New York. Music by Chopin: Etude Op. 10, No. 12 as played by Franco-Swiss pianist Alfred Cortot (1933).

wednesday 17 april
Silent Movie Screen Test No. 2 (Oslo)
Featuring Anne Gridley, Matthew Korahais, and Alison Weisgall. Filmed at Black Box Theater in Oslo by Pavol Liska. Edited by Kelly Copper in New York. Music from the motion picture Spellbound, Miklós Rózsa, conductor 1945).

thursday 18 april
Silent Movie Screen Test No. 3 (Bergen)
Featuring Elisabeth Conner and Robert M. Johanson. Filmed at BIT Teatergarasjen in Bergen by Pavol Liska. Edited by Kelly Copper in New York. Music by Beethoven. Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op.13 "Pathetique" as played by Artur Schnabel (1935).

friday 19 april
Silent Movie Screen Test No. 4 (Trondheim)
Featuring Daniel Gower and Dany Naierman. Filmed at Rockheim (Avant Garden) in Trondheim by Pavol Liska. Edited by Kelly Copper in New York. Music is George and Ira Gershwin's The Man I Love as interpreted by organist George Wright on the Mighty Wurlitzer.

saturday 20 april
Silent Movie Screen Test No. 5 (Paris)
Featuring Anne Gridley and Julie LaMendola. Filmed in an apartment in Paris by Pavol Liska. Edited by Kelly Copper in New York. Music by Debussy: Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10 as played by the Budapest String Quartet (1940).

sunday 21 april
Silent Movie Screen Test No. 6 (Ghent)
Featuring Fumiyo Ikeda. Filmed at Vooruit in Ghent by Pavol Liska. Edited by Kelly Copper in New York. Music is Tango Jalousie, performed by Leo Reisman and his Orchestra (1925).

The works of Nature Theater of Oklahoma - theatre, musicals, movies, radio or books - are always a puzzle. Playing with codes and contexts, worn awkwardly, enhancing hybridizations (from the American dinner theatre, to Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries, to the sports choreographies of Communist regimes). Typically American, they offer a continuum between high art, junk art and daily life. The borders are porous. The overlap is fluid. Based on telephone transcripts, as in the case of the marathon in 10 episodes Life and Times and of the films presented at Live Arts Week, the colloquial texts that they use become multiple and collective biographies, in which the banal, the random and the daily take on epic aspects. The Silent Movies Screen Test No. 1> 6, with references to Wharol, began as studies for a film production. Silent film, expressionist acting, melodrama, remnants of adolescent memories of college, And um she...! She was also starting up a band! No-no-no! She was PLAYING in a band! ANOTHER band! It was some band called - I dont remember! Anyway!

Notes: "All films are composed of hundreds of still images at a rate of 10 still frames per second.  The texts used are fragments from Episode 6 of Life and Times (which was a damaged recording, so only a few pieces remain). Pavol would spend typically a day (8 hours) shooting the individualstills for each film with the actors involved. The stills were shot in color and then I imported the stills in Final Cut, changed them to black and white and applied other filters to simulate silent film stock.  I also created the titles and selected music to accompany the films." (Kelly Copper/NTO)

tuesday 16 > sunday 21 april   9 pm>  MAMbo