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Dance Review: Attack Theatre's 'Nutcracker' crackles
Friday, December 29, 2000 By Jane Vranish, Post-Gazette Dance Critic
There were no visions of sugarplums nestled in "This Ain't the Nutcracker," Attack Theatre's alternative answer to the holiday doldrums which debuted at the Hazlett Theatre, North Side, last night.
Well, maybe there was a brief reference to Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" by cellist David Eggar. But Attack directors Michele de la Reza and Peter Kope deliberately kept things off the beaten path.
This time the duo expanded Attack's walls to include artists from New York City's Perks MusicDanceTheatre to fill in Pittsburgh talent. This was an engaging and provocative concert, except for Rebecca Stenn's "Candlepiece," where its tiny glow tried to trace the line of her body but was swallowed by the dark recesses of the Hazlett.
"Candlepiece" set up the philosophy of the concert, however: to alter our perceptions of dance. Perhaps "Typeset" was the most conventional, a brief dance noir formulated in the Dashiell Hammet tradition. De la Reza was Kope's blonde bombshell muse. But who was leading whom?
Kope also played around with Eggar and his cello in "Cellus Maximus." A twist on the teacher-pupil relationship, its most interesting point came in watching the two men trade movement. Kope was awkward at the cello, but comfortable in the dance and Eggar vice-versa.
That was explored more in "Chance Encounters," a lovely piece in which Kope and de la Reza performed solos depicting members of a Victorian family taken from a photo collection by Vik Muniz.
The two improvised various endings picked by the audience was too much of a jolt to the sensitive nature of the work.
After a witty, silent MTV-type flick on "Love, Betrayal, Death and a Bull," Attack and Perks played with those possibilities in "Kharmen Suites." With only Eggar on cello and Jay Weissman on electric bass, there was plenty of action with dancers, most notably where Kope was killed by the cello's endpin.
But they saved the best for last. "Resolution Cafe" was created for Pittsburgh's First Night in 1995. De la Reza and Kope reworked this impressionistic take on a New Year's Eve couple on the road to a break-up. The piece was slickly accompanied by pianist Doug Levine, cellist Susan Reilly and crooner Michael Walsh, and it became a terrific tour de force for the talents of this couple.
The program will be repeated tonight at 7:30 p.m. and tomorrow at 3 p.m. Call 412-371-0608.
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