January 21, 2021
By Sara Bauknecht, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Attack Theatre has been dubbed Pittsburgh’s modern dance chameleon for a reason. The company isn’t afraid to shape-shift to meet a challenge or try something new.
With large live performances still on hold because of COVID-19, Attack Theatre knew it was time to adapt again and “completely re-imagine” its approach, said co-artistic director Michele de la Reza. The result: a dance-for-film collaboration with a choreographer she never met filmed in Attack Theatre’s new headquarters in Lawrenceville.
Their dance film “I : I” will premiere Friday during an hourlong interactive online experience for audiences. There also are two chances to screen it Saturday.
“We’ve always utilized video and film within our work but not as the work,” Ms. de la Reza said, “so we wanted to work with a choreographer who also is doing work in dance film.”
Screening a film that featured some friends and dance professionals she knew led her to connect with its choreographer/director, Brooklyn-based Janessa Clark.
“I was incredibly moved by the work, by the aesthetic,” Ms. de la Reza recalled. “I just reached out and said, ‘Hi, I’m Michele and we’re Attack Theatre. How’s it going?’”
Although they were strangers in different states, the possible collaboration piqued her interest.
“We just started having long conversations about kind of everything to make our way to this point that we’re at now,” Ms. Clark said.
A turning point in the development process came when an injury sent Ms. Clark to get an MRI.
“It makes so many incredible noises — Some of them are very rhythmical, and some of them are jarring and abrasive. Others sound like a dance score,” Ms. Clark said. “I just started in my brain choreographing something.”
Beyond inspiring the original score by Santa Fe-based composer David Shane Smith, it also let them find a direction for the film. An MRI machine helps people diagnose an issue inside them, so they figure out their next steps to fix it. Isn’t that what each person should be doing in daily life, too?
“There are so many things going on with the pandemic, racial inequality, Black Lives Matter and the election. It’s just this moment of dissonance in so many people’s lives,” Ms. Clark said. “We have to really stop, hit pause or mute, and really diagnose what the issue is and how to change it.”
That premise carried over into where the film was shot. Its four performers — Ms. de la Reza, Simon Phillips, Dane Toney and Sarah Zielinski — danced their roles in separate spaces inside Attack Theatre’s new home at 212 45th St., in Lawrenceville, before coming together in one large room. That represented “collectively moving in a new direction, but still being an individual in the group,” Ms. Clark said.
The film owes its name “I : I” to that MRI machine, as well.
“There were these long lines down the center of it in the mid-line of the body,” Ms. Clark said. “It just jumped out to me as the letter ‘I’ but also the number one.” Whether audiences pronounce the title as “I to I” or “one to one” is open to interpretation.
Shooting a dance film in a pandemic with a choreographer who had never been to Pittsburgh — and didn’t travel here because of COVID-19 — was filled with “twists and turns and turns and turns and twists again,” Ms. de la Reza said. Performers worked through choreography on their own remotely via Zoom. Putting it together in person required extra time to make it unison.
Extra care also went into the storyboarding process to ensure they had a detailed shot list. Because social distancing was enforced, extra shots had to be taken of performers doing similar movements so they could be edited together to make it look as though they were interacting more closely than they actually were.
Attack Theatre also got creative with getting Ms. Clark involved in the shoot, even though she wasn’t on site.
“I was [watching] on a laptop that was on a wheelie cart that was being rolled around the space by whoever wasn’t in the shot,” Ms. Clark said.
And she wasn’t the only one on wheels. The cinematographer Joshua Sweeny filmed some parts holding a camera on a stabilizer while riding a Hoverboard.
Mr. Toney did double duty as dancer and editor to piece all the shots together into their final 15-minute format. Ms. Clark aimed to keep it no longer than that so it would be eligible to be entered into dance film festivals in the future.
During the Pittsburgh premiere, audiences will be treated to an interactive Zoom experience that’s been designed to mimic the parts of a live Attack Theatre performance. Guests will split up into breakout rooms for a virtual tour of Attack Theatre’s new venue, plus other surprises.
“I think in the final product there is a very palpable intimacy, even though all safety protocols were followed at all points of time,” Ms. Clark said. “But that’s encouraging to look at what we can make even though we can’t partner or roll around ... and the director can’t come to the film shoot. We can still do this.”
Dane Toney and Michele de la Reza in I : I image by Joshua Sweeny