Just Do It

48 Hour Dance Project

by Rachel Whitkin

Sat. and Sun., Nov. 15 and 16, 7:30 p.m., $10, Susan Hess Modern Dance, 2030 Sansom St., 3rd floor, hessdance.org

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If you can follow directions, this season's opening performance from the Susan Hess Modern Dance Co. sounds simple enough. For 48 Hours, four choreographers will assign each other a list of five directives that they need to incorporate into a dance of their own creation. Anything is game, including movement, costumes, props, visual images, music and specific interaction.

The catch: They'll receive their instructions only two days before they are to produce and perform the routine on Saturday evening.

The project was conceived in 2005 by Susan Hess alumna Devynn Emory, who will direct the performance. The choreographers — Meg Foley, Erin Foreman-Murray, Jumatatu Poe and Olive Prince — are part of the company's residency program and may perform the routines themselves or use their dancers, depending on their interpretation of the given elements.

"The main goal of the project is to challenge us to not be so precious with our preferred processes and aesthetic," says Foley, who has danced in the project before but is choreographing for the first time. "At first it feels paralyzing, but then amazingly freeing. It's a problem-solving exercise, so we are just flexing our choreographic muscles in a way we don't normally get to do."