Memoryhouse
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
The Wallis & Los Angeles Ballet Present Memoryhouse
The emotionally powerful original work by LAB Artistic Director Melissa Barak returns to the stage in 2025. Memoryhouse is an abstract ballet composed of vignettes commemorating the 6 million Jewish lives lost during the Holocaust; the ballet is set to Max Richter’s powerful album of the same name in its entirety. The ballet has 18 movements, totaling the number of tracks on the album. Some movements connect with others while some live on their own. No alterations were made to the score, the electronic voices, sounds, and touches are part of the original recording. This haunting piece blends modern, traditional, and abstract dance forms taking audiences on a journey of emotional reflection.
Barak partnered with Hagy Belzberg, Founding Partner of BA Collective and the architect of The Holocaust Museum LA for set design, and Sebastian Peschiera of Narduli Studio for media design.
Choreography
LAB Artistic Director and L.A. native Melissa Barak’s choreography for Memoryhouse was inspired years ago after listening to Richter’s album. Using Richter’s score as a guide, and putting together the stories she’d spent years gathering, Barak began creating movements based on time and place representing the Holocaust. It was a labor of love that returns to LAB this winter.
Score
Max Richter is a German-born composer and pianist of ballet, opera, stage, and film. He is known for his contemporary classical and postminimalist styles. Memoryhouse represented Richter’s first solo debut in 2002 and was lauded as a “landmark work of contemporary classical” weaving blending electronic and orchestral sounds. Richter’s work can also be found on television most recently in HBO’s The Last of Us and Hulu’s The Veil.
Program length - 85 minutes with 1 intermission
Memoryhouse is presented in partnership with the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts
Photos by Cheryl Mann
Media Design by Sebastian Peschiera; Set Design by Belzberg Architects; Costumes by Holly
Hynes; Lighting by Nathan Scheuer; Photo by Rachel Weber
Principal Sponsor of the world premiere: The David and Janet Polak Foundation
A documentary film, The Creation of Memoryhouse was produced by MikkoMia Productions.
LAB's NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Melissa Barak Barak is a former leading dancer with Los Angeles Ballet where she performed for five seasons commencing in 2006 and choreographed Lost In Transition in 2008. Her career also includes New York City Ballet (NYCB), where she performed in numerous works by George Balanchine, as well as originating roles in new ballets by Christopher Wheeldon, Elliot Feld and Robert Garland, among others.
LOS ANGELES BALLET
Read the history of the company from the premiere performances of LAB’s original production of The Nutcracker in 2006. Learn about LAB’s Leadership, Mission, Outreach initiatives, commissions of original works and more.
