Never Forget

Never forget!” With the 80^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and International Holocaust Remembrance Day both having been recognized last month, these words, although unspoken, coursed through Melissa Barak’s first evening-length ballet, “Memoryhouse.” Seen at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts last weekend, and performed by her troupe, Los Angeles Ballet, the staggeringly beautiful abstract work commemorates World War II, and in particular, the Holocaust.

Performance

Los Angeles Ballet: “Memoryhouse” by Melissa Barak

Place

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills, California, January 30 – February 1, 2025

Words

Victoria Looseleaf

Los Angeles Ballet in “Memoryhouse” by Melissa Barak. Photograph by Cheryl Mann

Inspired by the choreographer’s interest in those exceedingly dark days and Max Richter’s haunting 2002 album, “Memoryhouse” (heard on tape in its entirety), the two-act, 75-minute ballet takes its cues from the 18 tracks of the recording. Having originally premiered in 2023, the dance seems to have renewed intensity by dint of today’s political climate, where fear and hatred of the Other, has given even more rise to anti-Semitism, heinous acts of violence, and the possibility of concentration camps for migrants.

Act I, “Europe, After the Rain,” begins behind a scrim, with Sebastian Peschiera’s gorgeous projections conjuring birds, a forest, and rain that makes it seem as if the earth is crying. Eight dancers, including Poppy Coleman, Aviva Gelfer-Mundl, Bryce Broedell and Shintaro Akana, moved across the stage delicately, but also seeming to carry an unthinkable burden. Dressed in Holly Hynes’ simple grayish leggings and tops—bleakness personified—they walked and danced in pairs and as a unit in what might have been their final day of freedom.

The pairing continued with a Russian-language voiceover in the section, “Maria, the Poet (1913),” with Julianne Kinasiewicz, Anna Jacobs, Marco Biella and Evan Swenson running in a circle. Here, Richter’s neo-Romantic, albeit post-classical music, also accompanied moves akin to an ice-skating death spiral, as the projections conjured everything from a prison to a domicile. Nathan Scheuer’s exquisite lighting design featured a moving spotlight—images of prisoners, perhaps, being singled out for punishment—while same-sex partnering, always welcome, was also on view.

Barak, a Los Angeles native who danced with New York City Ballet and understands the Balanchine technique, has a keen eye, with recurring motifs including skittering, intricate lifts and exacting unisons, her movement vocabulary gloriously wedded to the music. With a snowy scene five, “Sarajevo,” two trios (John Dekle, Jonas Tutaj, Lilly Fife, Paige Wilkey, Akana and Broedell), engaged in a bit of revelry, seemingly unhampered as the music ominously crescendo-ed.

Paige Wilkey and Evan Swenson in “Memoryhouse” by Melissa Barak. Photograph by Cheryl Mann

In “Andras,” Cesar Ramirez-Castellano and Jacob Soltero, both shirtless, were in Alvin Ailey “Sinner Man” mode, their quicksilver leaps effortless, the urgency of the moment heart-stopping before this staging morphed into a group number, “Untitled (Figures).” Here, a cadre of dancers, seven to be exact, became a throbbing, propulsive organism (there is, after all, safety in numbers—or not), as a plaintive violin solo reverberated throughout the venue.

And while ballet is all about elevation, the rising up from the floor, much of the dancing in the first act—the marvelous lifts aside—felt grounded, and was in keeping with the story: how six million Jews were beat down, executed and meant to be eliminated. Yet through their souls, their determination, their will to live—here magnificently expressed through the body—these brave innocents would have their stories live on.

The scrim, a kind of veil of tears and so much more, which had kept the dancers shrouded and at a remove from the audience in Act I, was lifted for most of the second act. Beginning with “Jan’s Notebook,” Kinasiewicz, Jacobs, Biella and Swenson were seated around a large white table that also featured a kind of geometric slant board, with the two gals clad in blue and green flowy dresses, revealing, at last, their dancerly arms and legs.

Designed by Hagy Belzberg, founding partner of BA Collective and architect of the Holocaust Museum in L.A., this table served as a unifying space, with the men in white shirts and black pants projecting an air of freedom; the quartet assaying a minuet-like dance, also making use of small white stools. Then, as if a sylph had floated in, Wilkey, garbed in a Romantic-type tutu, her long red hair flowing, entered on pointe in “Arbenita (11 years).”

An angel in our midst, a goddess of hope, she moved backwards with the tiniest of bourrées, and was soon accompanied by a swoon-worthy Swenson, who hoisted his precious cargo aloft, as if she were the prow of a ship. Their duet, also reminiscent of Astaire and Rogers—elegant, airy, liberating—their bodies contained lives, seemingly both past and future. Indeed, this passage proved the perfect terpsichorean palate cleanser, if you will, before Swenson rejoined the folks at the table in the “Garden (1973) / Interior.”

Julianne Kinasiewicz (in blue) and Evan Swenson in “Memoryhouse” by Melissa Barak. Photograph by Cheryl Mann

Curiously, the slant board (similar to Jacques Heim’s prop for his hyperphysical dance company, Diavolo|Architecture in Motion), then served as a structure that saw the dancers sliding and crawling, hoping, possibly, to avoid the bottom, an abyss, a void, a metaphor for death. Here, life could be felt slipping, oozing away, as a fiery backdrop would soon consume them. (This conflagration also conjured up the recent fires suffered by the City of Angels, accentuating the ever-preciousness/precariousness of life).

If there could be such a state, a unified frenzy followed, and with the “Last Days” section, Richter’s music grew more dissonant, the inevitable sadness of death creeping in before Wiley and Swenson returned in “Quartet Fragment (1908).” A poetic, heartbreaking finale featuring the pair in street clothes, one can only wonder whether the couple’s destiny would bring great relief or unbearable tragedy.

Through Barak’s blend of contemporary and classical styles, the technical brilliance of her dancers, including Natalia Burns and Sarah-Ashley Chicola, as well as her team of immensely talented collaborators, this writer will never forget “Memoryhouse,” and the history it so daringly—and poignantly—evokes.

Victoria Looseleaf

Victoria Looseleaf is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based international arts journalist who covers music and dance festivals around the world. Among the many publications she has contributed to are the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Dance Magazine and KCET’s Artbound. In addition, she taught dance history at USC and Santa Monica College. Looseleaf’s novella-in-verse, Isn't It Rich? is available from Amazon, and and her latest book, Russ & Iggy’s Art Alphabet with illustrations by JT Steiny, was recently published by Red Sky Presents. Looseleaf can be reached through X, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In, as well as at her online arts magazine ArtNowLA.

comments

Merilyn Jackson February 10, 2025

Thanks Victoria for this vivid and deeply attentive review. I love Richter’s music and it sounds like Barak got it and put it to its best use. A note: your description of the slant board reminds me of Joose’s Green Table which forecasted the Holocaust.

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