The Secret Annexe

Het Achterhuis

A multi-media performance piece featuring Colin Decio's Piano Trio, inspired by the Diary of Anne Frank

• Composer and pianist: Colin Decio
• Cellist: Clare Graham
• Violinist: Cindy Wu
• Visual artist: Richard Aylwin
• Performer and singer: Elizabeth Mansfield
• Lighting: Naoko Nagai
• Performer: Azusa Ono
• Writer: Steve Trafford
• With The Decio Trio

In The Secret Annexe words, song and movement interweave with Colin Decio's music and Richard Aylwin's moving imagery in a powerful performance piece, which celebrates not only the courage of those who stand up against bullying, oppression and racism, but also the luminosity of Anne Frank's extraordinary imagination, humour and wisdom.

The Secret Annexe will be available in Autumn 2010, and will be presented in performance spaces, alongside an educational workshop programme, for 14 to 16 year old children. The practical, one-day workshops will explore, through music, painting and prose, the children's creative responses to how Anne's world meets their own.

Wherever The Secret Annexe is presented we want to engage new audiences, bringing local people and organisations together, to create an event that will be enjoyed by both children and adults alike. We want to inspire all our workshop participants, our audiences and anyone who is touched by this project, to reflect and remember, in the words of the Anne Frank Declaration for the New Millennium, that...

“...Her life warns us about the dangers of intolerance...
Wars now, more than ever before, claim the lives of the young...
We all have a moral and spiritual obligation to keep our world safe for the generations to come... ”

This project is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and by Spelthorne Borough Council. Also, by Buddy Elias and the Anne Frank-Fonds, and the Anne Frank Educational Trust UK.