Photos: Perfume Genius to Premiere THE LESSON in Los Angeles Feb 18
Musician Mike Hadreas and choreographer Kate Wallich collaborate on a new work inspired by Elfriede Jelinek's The Piano Teacher.
Musician and composer Mike Hadreas (Perfume Genius) and choreographer Kate Wallich have reunited for a new evening-length music and dance work, The Lesson, commissioned by Seattle Theatre Group. Blending Perfume Genius' emotionally charged experimental pop with Wallich's distinctive choreographic language, The Lesson is a raw, live music and dance performance that draws inspiration from The Piano Teacher, the notorious novel by Elfriede Jelinek that was later adapted into Michael Haneke's celebrated film.
Photo Credit: Alex Kacha
They will premiere The Lesson at REDCAT in Los Angeles with a three-night stand beginning February 18, followed by additional performances February 25-27. In March The Lesson will continue its world tour with performances in New York City, Paris, London, and more.
The score features all new Perfume Genius music, and more is expected to be released in 2027. Hadreas offers an early listen via 'Natural High,' which marks his first release since his GRAMMY-nominated seventh album, Glory. Co-produced by Pascal Stevenson (Fashion Club), the six-minute song ascends from moody keyboard figures to gauzy synths and culminates in a full-on house rave-up.
The Lesson follows Hadreas and Wallich's 2019 collaboration The Sun Still Burns Here, and its afterlife, Perfume Genius' album Ugly Season. The new work examines what happens when desire has nowhere to go, and what 'we are rehearsing when we practice 'good behavior.'' Moving through repression, longing, authority, and submission, it unfolds through unstable scenes where roles shift, boundaries blur, and the unsaid becomes manically physical.
Longtime admirers of Perfume Genius will recognize the influence of The Piano Teacher, a work Hadreas has often cited as a touchstone. Its intense psychological landscape, unsettling humor, and capacity to hold tragedy and absurdity simultaneously resonate throughout The Lesson.
Created and performed by Hadreas, Wallich, Alan Wyffels, and Tate Justus, The Lesson continues an ongoing artistic dialogue between music, movement, and performance. The work brings together longtime collaborators and expands upon the creative partnership first explored in The Sun Still Burns Here, which was hailed by critics as 'an otherworldly collaboration' (The Stranger) and prompted Pitchfork to declare, 'This might be how the music of Perfume Genius is meant to be experienced.'
'Mike and I learned during the last piece, that we are interested in the same kinds of tensions and contradictions in the work we make,' says Wallich. 'When we started searching for a framework for this new piece, we kept coming back to The Piano Teacher. We are all drawn to the dynamics between what is good and what is bad...how we're supposed to behave, and how we aren't, how to balance desire and restraint. As we've gotten older and closer, and learned a lot of our own lessons along the way, it feels right to come back into a room together, ask new questions and create stakes together again.'
Hadreas says, 'I've always thought of my albums as soundtracks to films that do not exist. There is a freedom to inhabiting something imagined and purely sonic. I can be every character or not exist at all or body swap at will. Scenes can shift immediately just because I feel like it. That doesn't change when creating a performance with Kate, all the mystery and thrill of going somewhere lawless and dreamlike stays intact - but I'm not alone in building the world and it literally fleshes out in real time. Body swapping feels very different when you are actually in a room holding the other person.'
Creative Team
Kate Wallich — Director, Choreographer, Performer
Mike Hadreas — Director, Composer, Performer
Alan Wyffels — Composer, Collaborator, Performer
Tate Justus — Collaborator, Performer
Amiya Brown — Scenographer
The Lesson was commissioned by Seattle Theatre Group and the STG Performing Arts Series, with additional commissioning and development support from REDCAT, Liquid Music/Northrop, MASS MoCA, and WIP LA.
World Premiere & Tour Dates
February 6 – North Adams, MA, USA - MASS MoCA (Work-in-Progress Showing)
February 18-20 & February 25-27 – Los Angeles, CA, USA - REDCAT (World Premiere)
March 4-6 – New York, NY - Baryshnikov Arts Center
March 17 & 18 – Paris, France - Philharmonie de Paris
March 21 – London, United Kingdom - Barbican Centre
March 24 – Utrecht, Netherlands - Birds of Paradise Festival
March 27 – Dublin, Ireland - National Concert Hall
April 1 – Minneapolis, MN, USA - Liquid Music / Northrop
April 9 – Seattle, WA, USA - The 5th Avenue Theatre
About Perfume Genius
Perfume Genius is the moniker of artist Mike Hadreas. Since releasing his debut album, Learning, in 2010 via longtime label home Matador Records, Hadreas has become one of the most acclaimed and distinctive voices in contemporary music, known for emotionally vulnerable songwriting, nuanced vocals, and boundary-pushing performances. His body of work includes Put Your Back N 2 It; Too Bright, featuring the single 'Queen,' which became a queer anthem and powerful statement of identity; the GRAMMY-nominated No Shape; Set My Heart On Fire Immediately; Ugly Season; and his most recent GRAMMY-nominated album, Glory (2025).
About Kate Wallich
Kate Wallich is a dancer, choreographer, educator, and founder whose work spans contemporary performance, public practice, and creative entrepreneurship. She is the founder of Dance Church, the all-levels movement practice that offers weekly classes in more than 12 markets across the United States, supports over 50 professional dance artists through ongoing employment as teachers, and has engaged hundreds of thousands of community members since its founding in 2010. Her choreographic works have been commissioned and presented by organizations including The Joyce Theater, MASS MoCA, Walker Art Center, On the Boards, Seattle Theatre Group, and ICA Boston. She is the founder of Studio Kate Wallich, a nonprofit arts organization that houses her choreographic practice, public programming initiatives like WIP LA, and artist development projects. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
Photo Credit: Alex Kacha
Sign up for all the news on the Fall season, discounts & more...
.jpg?format=auto&width=300)
