Perspectives: Perfume Genius & Kate Wallich - The Lesson

Kate Wallich director, choreographer, performer
Mike Hadreas director, composer, performer
Alan Wyffles composer, collaborator, performer
Tate Justus collaborator, performer
Amiya Brown scenographer

Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) returns to the stage in a bold new collaboration with choreographer Kate Wallich.

Combining Perfume Genius’ experimental pop with Kate Wallich’s choreographic lens, The Lesson is a raw, visceral performance work inspired by The Piano Teacher, the notorious novel by Elfriede Jelinek.

The Lesson explores what happens when desire has nowhere to go, and what we’re rehearsing when we practice “good behaviour”. The work moves through repression, longing, authority, and submission in unstable scenes where roles shift, and the unspeakable becomes manically physical.

Longtime admirers know that Perfume Genius has spoken about his love of The Piano Teacher. Its intense, clinical bleakness and its capacity to be both unsettlingly comic and tragic, qualities that echo through the landscape of The Lesson.

Following their acclaimed 2019 performance collaboration The Sun Still Burns Here, Hadreas reunites with Wallich alongside his husband and musical partner Alan Wyffels and longtime collaborator Tate Justus. 

Presented by NCH