Perfume Genius & Kate Wallich “The Lesson”
Tickets
On sale ticketmaster.com
Doors open at 7:00 PM
About
Friday, Apr. 9, 2027
The 5th Avenue Theatre
Doors at 7pm
Show at 8pm
Reserved seating, all ages
Free Public Transportation is available to Performing Arts Series patrons. Learn more about the offer here
Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) and choreographer Kate Wallich return to the stage with a new collaboration. Combining Perfume Genius’ experimental pop with Wallich’s choreographic lens, The Lesson is a raw, uncompromising performance work inspired by The Piano Teacher, the notorious novel by Elfriede Jelinek, famously adapted by Michael Haneke. The Lesson examines what happens when desire has nowhere to go, and what we’re rehearsing when we practice “good behavior”. The work moves through repression, longing, authority, and submission in unstable scenes where roles shift, and the unsaid becomes manically physical. Longtime admirers know that Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) 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.
Kate Wallich – Director, Choreographer, Performer
Mike Hadreas – Director, Composer, Performer
Alan Wyffles – Composer, Collaborator, Performer
Tate Justus – Collaborator, Performer
Nile Harris – Dramaturge
Amiya Brown – Scenographer
“This might be how the music of Perfume Genius is meant to be experienced” — Pitchfork
“An otherworldly collaboration” – The Stranger
“Fantasia for people who are dead inside” — W Magazine
The 5th Avenue Theatre
Doors at 7pm
Show at 8pm
Reserved seating, all ages
Free Public Transportation is available to Performing Arts Series patrons. Learn more about the offer here
Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) and choreographer Kate Wallich return to the stage with a new collaboration. Combining Perfume Genius’ experimental pop with Wallich’s choreographic lens, The Lesson is a raw, uncompromising performance work inspired by The Piano Teacher, the notorious novel by Elfriede Jelinek, famously adapted by Michael Haneke. The Lesson examines what happens when desire has nowhere to go, and what we’re rehearsing when we practice “good behavior”. The work moves through repression, longing, authority, and submission in unstable scenes where roles shift, and the unsaid becomes manically physical. Longtime admirers know that Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) 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.
Kate Wallich – Director, Choreographer, Performer
Mike Hadreas – Director, Composer, Performer
Alan Wyffles – Composer, Collaborator, Performer
Tate Justus – Collaborator, Performer
Nile Harris – Dramaturge
Amiya Brown – Scenographer
“This might be how the music of Perfume Genius is meant to be experienced” — Pitchfork
“An otherworldly collaboration” – The Stranger
“Fantasia for people who are dead inside” — W Magazine
Lineup
