Open House Melbourne Program 2022

Description: Temperance Hall has been home to Phillip Adams BalletLab and its performances since 2016. We host a curated program of ground-breaking contemporary dance, performance and arts events. The building comprises a main hall, two artist studios, offices and an apartment and hosts a diverse program of performances, exhibitions, rehearsals, residencies, community events and private functions.

Temperance Hall was built in 1863 by the Emerald Hill Total Abstinence Society, one of the influential temperance movements that shaped social life in nineteenth-century Melbourne. In its early days, the hall was used by a large number of social clubs, political parties and societies, and hosted alcohol-free concerts, dances and performances. Anthill Theatre made the space their home in the 1980s and from that point the building has had an association with the performing arts.

While Temperance Hall has been lovingly restored, much of the building remains in its original condition, from the studio's mosaic of layers of pastel colours showing through the cracked and fading paint work to the grand stained-glass window in the Main Hall.

What's happening: The Open House Melbourne program will see Temperance Hall’s Artistic Director, Phillip Adams, lead a guided tour of the historic building and speak to his own affiliation with the historic space.

Throughout the day, the public are also invited to watch past screenings of much-loved performances. From Fiction, Axeman Lullaby, Sick, Endling, Ever, Glory to The Prelude, which will be projected in the Main Hall, where the works first premiered.