Best of 2000: Best Dance Troupe

Eveoke Dance Theatre
644 Seventh Avenue, Downtown
(619) 238-1153

Call them dance/theater or text/movement/music pieces: each is distinctly Eveoke: plural voices and signs, charged with energy and whirling motion, committed to social action. Artistic director Gina Angelique recently reprised her 1996 creation, Anne Frank: Soul of a Young Girl at the Lyceum. The production remains one of the year's best. As a voice read from Anne Frank's diary, the cast, trapped in an attic, hiding from the Nazis, acted out feelings of confinement, puzzlement, and horror. The stage became a kaleidoscope of unforgettable sounds and images. Christopher Hall, as daring a scenic designer as Angelique is a director, made at least one-third of the Lyceum audience sit in wood-slatted stalls. We, too, felt Frank's claustrophobia; we, too, fell silent when footsteps sounded below.