Nikki Dunnan

AS COFOUNDER of Eveoke Dance Theatre, Nikki Dunnan moves fluidly between several roles. She has performed in all 27 Eveoke productions and has served as the business director for the past six years. Now she is stepping into an executive position, while remaining engaged as a dancer.

She was drawn to Eveoke cofounder and artistic director Gina Angelique’s choreography 12 years ago as a freshman at UC Irvine, where Dunnan majored in dance. “Gina’s work was raw emotion,” she says. “Her choreography had intention, which is key to what Eveoke does.”

After dancing in several of Angelique’s pieces, Dunnan was invited to become a founding member of Eveoke (along with producer Chris Hall). The company made its home in San Diego, where Dunnan also earned a B.A. in psychology from UCSD. Eveoke’s goal, which goes beyond performing modern dance pieces, is to illuminate social issues in a creative, evocative way. Its educational programs reach an average of 3,000 children each week; preschoolers, college students, foster and homeless childrenhave all benefited from the company’s diverse programming.

As a class of fifth graders jumbles into the downtown studio—a skylit, purple, 5,000-square-foot space— Dunnan credits the initiative of Erika Malone, education outreach director. “The seeds for outreach were planted by Gina, but Erika made them grow.”

Malone describes the vision that Eveoke’s founders have infused into the company’s culture: “Creativity and our ability to change and impact the world are limitless; it’s our responsibility to use that power,” she says. “We use mind, body and heart in equal measure in our dance.”

One of Dunnan’s favorite performance pieces is Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, a critically acclaimed signature work. “So many people said, ‘How can you do Anne Frank through dance?’ ” she says. “But it’s the most accessible version of the theater we do; everyone can connect in some way.”

After recently deciding to relocate, Angelique and Hall asked Dunnan if she would assume the leadership of Eveoke. The prospect packed an emotional wallop. “I wondered, ‘How will I feed myself artistically?’ ” she says. But as her multifaceted company role has shown, Dunnan will continue to rely on her talent of elegantly integrating the roles of leader and dancer.

Eveoke’s annual Celebrate Dance festival, hosted in Balboa Park and free to the public, has taken on a life of its own over the past 10 years. The audience has grown to 10,000, but sadly, its 2006 funding was cut in half. The company is working to secure funding in the next year with the goal of returning Celebrate Dance to the community in 2008.

And due to an expiring lease, Eveoke will be looking for a new home in 2007. The company will continue outreach efforts downtown but aims to find space within the community where families can walk to the studio with their children. Dunnan isn’t fazed by the challenges ahead. Instead, she thrives on them. “I like the excitement of creating a new space,” she says. “I really like moving.”

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