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Point Park University dance majors Kellie Hodges, Maggie Mudd and Joshua Ingraham know what it's like to take your muse to the mat.

The trio, all 21, have spent the past five weeks rehearsing, pruning and revising their original movement pieces. They'll premiere this weekend as part of the annual "Student Choreography Project" at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in Oakland.

Class has just concluded in the seventh-floor studio at the University's Conservatory of Performing Arts. The three student choreographers sit on the floor and reflect on the privilege and pressure of having their works produced. They aren't graded on their pieces, but it's a safe bet they're looking forward to opening night with mid-term level nerves.

"I have so much going on in my head it's a good outlet," says Hodges, a junior jazz dance major and a native of San Antonio, Texas, whose piece is titled "Liberating."

Each year, the university's Conservatory of Performing Arts invites students to submit their choreography to a panel of judges. Those who make the cut get to audition fellow students, and choose the music and costumes -- bringing their idea along from brain to stage.

"A lot of times what you think you love is 100 percent different onstage and in costume," says Mudd, a senior from Washington, D.C., who has already decided she'd like to choreograph professionally and run her own dance company like her inspirations Martha Graham and Pina Bausch.

Her piece, "One Man's Women," a female trio, explores each woman's relationship to the same man. The nature of these relationships are illustrated by the way each dancer handles a shirt that has been left behind by the guy.

The lanky, affable Ingraham pays tribute to his Georgia hometown with a piece titled "August in Atlanta." Warming to his subject, he describes the experience of discovering the right music for his piece in terms of a particularly arduous courtship.

The time crunch helps to keep him from getting bogged down, he says.

"Five weeks is a good amount of time because it doesn't allow you ... time to sit and fester or get lazy," he says.

This year's concert will be divided into two programs, each comprised of seven original dances.

Program A takes place 8 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday, and Program B at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Also new this year, the concerts will include a short question-and-answer period in which the student choreographers can explain their creative choices.

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