Attack Theatre celebrates 30 years in Pittsburgh under new director Andrés Franco
Andrés Franco conducting Tulsa Signature Symphony. Photo courtesy of Tulsa Signature Symphony.
NEXTpittsburgh - Andrés Franco has been Attack Theatre’s new executive director for only a few weeks, but he’s already excited about the milestone year to come.
“This coming season is going to be our 30th anniversary. So there’s going to be a lot of celebration. A lot.”
Celebration has been baked into the genetic code of Lawrenceville’s Attack Theatre since its founding by Michele de la Reza and Peter Kope to fulfill their artistic dream of “a collaboration between two dancers and a city.”
The nationally acclaimed modern dance company is known for its eclectic, cutting-edge choreography lavishly infused with music, art, film, spoken word, theater — and full-scale audience participation. Attack Theatre shares its office and performance space in the Butler Street Lofts building at 212 45th St. with Quantum Theatre, Chamber Music Pittsburgh and New Horizon Theater.
Franco is a native of Colombia who took up classical piano at age 5, earned advanced music degrees in Colombia and the U.S. and embarked on an illustrious two-decade career as a highly sought symphony guest conductor in North America, South America and Europe.
His father, Jorge Franco, is a renowned ethnomusicologist who pioneered the preservation of native music and dance traditions throughout Colombia. “I grew up listening to all kinds of music,” says Franco. “Everything from jazz and rock, to folk and classical, as well as the many varieties of indigenous music my father was encountering.”
Franco has served as resident conductor with the Fort Worth Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and as music director with Tulsa Signature Symphony and Philharmonia of Kansas City. In 2020, he applied his performing and teaching experience to the field of arts administration with an executive director position at City of Asylum.
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NEXTpittsburgh: Had you worked with Attack Theatre before coming on board as executive director?
Andrés Franco: I met Michele and Peter almost 10 years ago. I met them on stage during one of the collaborations between Attack Theatre and the Pittsburgh Symphony. I saw immediately that their productions inspired a deep engagement with their audiences. I was especially impressed with the extent of their collaborations not only with the symphony but with other arts groups.
NEXTpittsburgh: You’ve mentioned how essential collaboration is within the Pittsburgh cultural community.
Franco: Yes, it’s quite robust. Attack Theatre has partnerships with 12 different cultural institutions here in Pittsburgh, as well as with numerous individual artists. We have been longtime partners with Pittsburgh Opera, with Pittsburgh Symphony, with Andy Warhol Museum and others. It’s just been announced that we’re partnering with Quantum Theatre in the upcoming 2025-26 season to present the play “Enron” by British playwright Lucy Prebble.
NEXTpittsburgh: Is educational outreach an important part of the company’s programming?
Franco: The education side of Attack Theatre is very, very strong. Last year we brought programs to 35 schools and nine school districts. We reached over 5,000 students, with more than 1,200 in-school engagements and about 740 that took place out of school. Any day of the week, if you look at our calendar, there will be Attack Theatre teaching artists and staff going into different schools doing all kinds of programs. It’s not only teaching dance movements but how to use movement to make the learning environment more inviting.
NEXTpittsburgh: With the other arts groups here in the building, you’re envisioning the space as a kind of cultural hub?
Franco: We want to make sure that individual artists and other organizations are able to use our space. The idea is that this space is for performance but also for creativity, for collaboration, creative learning and education.
We recently hosted a sound bath experience with the violinist Monique Mead that incorporated movement along with her music. Several of our dancers participated, and that was a real collaboration. So, yes, we invite people to use our space. Let’s see how we can create something that was not there before.
NEXTpittsburgh: Finding new audiences is a challenge for any current art form. Do you have thoughts about audience development for Attack Theatre and other contemporary dance groups?
Franco: I think you start with just being hospitable and welcoming and making sure people know that this is for you. Come try it! And if you like it, come back. If you don’t, that’s OK, too. We all have a body, and we can move, right? As human beings, communicating is not just the performers on stage and the audience in a different place, divided.
Attack Theatre always has an element of interaction with the audience. How do you use movement to invite people to move with you? To experience that sensation and joy they are witnessing in the performers?
The first Attack Theatre show I saw this year was called “Sessions,” and there was an entire portion of the show where the audience was invited to interact with the dancers. We recently had our annual “Rock, Paper, Sizzle” event, and it was the same. There’s always this element of inviting the audience — anybody who is there — to move with you. Why not be part of it all?