Eveoke Dance Theatre is a nonprofit dance company that performs an annual dance season consisting of full-length original works, holds the Celebrate Dance Festival in Balboa Park, runs the Eveoke Education Program — which offers dozens of weekly dance classes at their downtown company school, and presents numerous special events throughout San Diego. What drives a company to do so much?

Founded in 1994 by seven dancers and three artistic executives, most of whom knew each other from a dance program at UC Irvine, Eveoke’s mission is to cultivate compassionate social action through core values of excellence and access, and to build, enrich and support such a community.

Artistic Director and Choreographer Gina Angelique, a master instructor for Eveoke and the outreach program director, has been dancing for 26 years. She had been working in an extremely poor inner-city section of Santa Ana teaching dance to gang youths through a program called St. Joseph’s ballet, when she fell in love with the idea of bringing quality expression and dance opportunities to underprivileged youth, who would otherwise not have the opportunity to channel their difficult backgrounds in positive, powerful ways.

“When I came to San Diego, right from the very beginning we wanted to repeat the same kind of program here, where people who are totally disenfranchised from artistic experience were able to have high quality arts education,” Angelique recalled. “Really working with professionals and being respected for the artists that they are and the voices that they have from their backgrounds.”

Angelique had graduated from UC Irvine’s dance department, magna cum laude, and was commanding a fairly good salary as a dance teacher when Eveoke first got off the ground.

“We started literally with no budget,” she said. “We started with about two dance classes a week and one class in the community. Now we have 24 dancers and close to 40 classes here a week, so that growth has been tremendous.… In the beginning we were dancing our hearts out for, like, six people. It was really hard. And then slowly, slowly we started building our audiences.”

The Eveoke Education Program teaches a variety of dance classes to the public, and provides tuition assistance to those who need it. The company school offers classes in hip-hop, jazz, tap, ballet, butoh (a Japanese ritual dance), movement expression, yoga and acting, but primarily teaches Eveoke Modern Technique.

“Eveoke Modern Technique is our evolution of multiple techniques,” explained Angelique. “It’s based on a six-part center, and it’s how we engage our abdomen or our souls in order to extend our bodies in deep juxtapositions to gravity. So it’s how we hang out in space without hurting ourselves.”

Eveoke has produced over 300 performances since 1994, including 22 full-length productions. Seven productions since 1998 have been included in the San Diego Union Tribune’s “Critic’s Choice” section, and Eveoke was voted “Best Dance Company” by the San Diego Reader several times.

Angelique created one of this year’s new full-length shows, entitled Mothers. For Mothers, Angelique interviewed a series of men and women who had unusually intense and often sad mothering experiences, then distilled the meaning of each experience into a dance piece that reflects the ways each person moves on, after unbearable sadness, among the daily absurdities of life.

“I was interested in that largely because of the context of the social-political actions that we’re taking as a country,” Angelique explained. “I don’t care who you are — far right, far left, straight as an edge, gay as can be — everybody has a mother. I can’t understand how we’ve come in large part to not value life so that we are so willing to go to war. Really, [Mothers] teaches a reflection on the value of life, in the context of political decisions that this country is making. And the idea of using mothers as the medium is that it’s something that crosses all boundaries.”

Along with Mothers, this year’s season features two new full-length shows: Camila’s Story and Funkalosophy.

Camila’s Story, choreographed by Elizabeth Licea of the Tijuana-based Ricardo Peralta Danza Performa, uses video imagery, text, song and movement into a story that connects the innocence of girlhood with a disenchanted middle-aged woman. The work is biographical, brutally honest, dreamy and highly visual.

Funkalosophy originally premiered in 2002 to critical acclaim, choreographed by Angelique and Eveoke’s Education Program Director Ericka Moore, who is also a master instructor and a company dancer. The modern dance theatre and hip-hop performance expounds upon the soul of urban culture, illuminating the philosophy behind funk and hip-hop, and explores its connection to social change and political activism. Funkalosophy also strives to present an alternative to the commercialized stereotypes of hip-hop: drugs, guns, misogyny and dominance.

“Funkalosophy asks how we can turn fences that divide us, whether economic, social, sexual or whatever those fences are in between us … into bridges,” Angelique said. “It exposes the underside of hip-hop, where activism is being created. It’s an incredibly high-energy, athletic, dynamic, entertaining look at hip-hop culture.”

Long after Funkalosophy closed, people still called for tickets. On the last night of the most recent run, people came hours before the sold-out performance to try to buy tickets. “It’s a dance show!” Angelique said. “It was the highlight of my life; people had their card tables out, their beer on the sidewalk. They were hanging out to make sure they got into the closing show of Funkalosophy! Be still my heart!”

Part of Eveoke’s outreach program is the Youth Performing Group, which performs at over 60 annual events a year, from fairs and festivals to school assemblies. They also teach residencies and workshops that can be custom fit to any school, social service or community organization’s particular focus. Some themes that are commonly explored through the dance workshops are self-esteem and confidence, nonviolent problem solving skills, personal health and respect for the physical body, and the importance and power of literacy and education. They provide all the necessary sound systems, music and materials for the programs, and have developed syllabus programs for teachers who want to add dance and movement theory to their academic classroom structure.

Four times a year, Eveoke hosts Friday Night Freeflows, a free event that showcases local artists’ work, spanning all performance disciplines. The goal, besides giving up and coming artists a chance to show their works in progress, is to facilitate a dialogue about art and its connection to social improvement.

The Celebrate Dance Festival is held every year in August in Balboa Park’s Casa del Prado Theatre and the outdoor Prado Stage. The largest dance festival west of Chicago, the three-day festival, free to the public, features over 50 dance groups who perform work in modern, contemporary and world dance, jazz, tap, ballet, hip-hop and butoh.

Eveoke has no immediate plans to branch out beyond San Diego. Instead, Angelique says, they would like to improve upon what they have already started, and ensure that the company continues to be progressive and true to its mission statement long after they have stopped dancing and teaching themselves.

“We’re an extremely grassroots-oriented company right now and we haven’t put efforts nationally because we’re so busy doing work here,” said Angelique. “The way we view San Diego is that it’s a place with a lot of potential and it needs a lot of help in a lot of ways. For now, we’ve chosen to focus our efforts here.”

Eveoke’s 2003-04 performance schedule continues with Mothers, which opens Friday, Jan. 2, and Camila’s Story, which opens Thursday, Jan. 8. Funkalosophy re-opens on Saturday, Feb. 7. All performances are at Sushi Performance & Visual Art at the Reincarnation Project, 320 11th Ave. Performances are Wednesday-Fridays at 8:00 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 7:00 p.m. and again at 8:30 p.m. Tickets range from $12-25. Call (619) 238-1153 for reservations and further information.