MEMORYHOUSE Comes to the Wallis

 The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts and Los Angeles Ballet will present Memoryhouse, a full-evening work by LAB’s Artistic Director Melissa Barak. Performances will take place in the Bram Goldsmith Theater at the Wallis in Beverly Hills January 30 – February 1, 2025. 

This presentation of Memoryhouse is the start of a new partnership between The Wallis and Los Angeles Ballet.

Memoryhouse is an abstract work composed of vignettes commemorating World War II and in particular, the Holocaust. Set to Max Richter’s powerful album of the same name, Memoryhouse will reflect on both the somber as well as more heroic moments that illuminate this period in human history.

“Dance is tricky in a sense,” said Barak. “The story of the Holocaust has such a darkness and a weight to it, the last thing you would want is for dance to take something of that nature too literally. For me, it was all about keeping it symbolic, removing the personal emotion as performers and to approach it as a ballet that focuses on symbolism and poetry.”
 
The Wallis along with the Holocaust Museum LA is also presenting a screening of Making of Memoryhouse on Thursday, January 23 at 6:30 PM in The Wallis Lovelace Studio Theater.  This documentary film follows choreographer Melissa Barak as she dives in headfirst with her creative team to bring this ballet inspired by the Holocaust to emotional life. Through performance and rehearsal clips, as well as interviews and powerful survivor testimony, audiences are brought into the creative process where Barak works on building a theatrical dance experience like no other.  The post-screening conversation will feature Barak, Holocaust survivors, and HMLA’s Chief Impact Officer Jordanna Gessler.  

Memoryhouse is choreographed to Max Richter's album Memoryhouse in its entirety and in the order it was meant to be listened to. The ballet has 18 movements which totals the number of tracks on the album.  Some movements connect with others while some live on their own. No alterations have been made to the score. All electronic voices, sounds, and touches are part of the original recording.
 
Barak partnered with Hagy Belzberg, Founding Partner of BA Collective and the architect of The Holocaust Museum for set design, and Sebastian Peschiera of Narduli Studio for production and projection design.
 
Tom Teicholz in Forbes said, “a dazzling creative accomplishment for Barak.  The power and artistry of Barak’s Memoryhouse reminds us, as Balanchine said, ‘Dance is important and significant – yes. But first of all, it is a pleasure.’”
 
William Keiser said in Stage and Cinema, “Memoryhouse is haunting and elegant, and deeply emotional. It brought tears to my eyes several times and I was not alone. It was never manipulative but always gentle, poetic, and direct, guiding rather than exhorting. The long, painstaking process of creating the piece paid off clearly in the slow unfolding of historical layers. It’s the kind of work that makes one want to come back again and again, because, like in a favorite book or movie, new elements and moments will come into focus or be thrown into relief.  I heartily recommend this production.”
 
Memoryhouse was originally planned to premiere in 2020, the 75th anniversary year of the end of the Holocaust. Melissa had returned from her trip to Germany and Poland and was well into the creative process when production was sidelined by the COVID pandemic. It ultimately premiered at BroadStage in Santa Monica in June 2023.
 

To post a comment, you must register and login.