What can bring sex, technology, identity and colorful scarves together in one place? Dance.

On Maryland Day, the theatre, dance and performance studies school will present selections from UMoves, a collaborative dance concert featuring original works by university undergraduates. The concert, which opened last night and runs tonight and Sunday, includes nine student performances as well as pieces choreographed by professional dancer and choreographer Doug Varone and artist-in-residence Taurus Broadhurst.

The concert introduces the community to what director Patrik Widrig called “the next generation of dance and performing artists.” UMoves takes the place of the Maryland Dance Ensemble concert, which gave the same rein to undergraduate artists, but with less collaboration than UMoves.

“We had a meeting at the end of the fall semester in which I laid out what was coming up,” said Widrig, a dance professor. “And then, at the beginning of this semester, we had a selection process where everybody brought in their incomplete works.”

After an audition process, Widrig and colleagues selected 11 pieces for the performance. Each undergraduate performer then selected a mentor — either a dance faculty member or a graduate student — to collaborate with help with collaboration in the weeks before opening night.

“Really, you use your mentor for anything,” said sophomore dance and marketing major Devin Seldon. “Patrik’s been instrumental in the evolution of my piece.”

The concert is a foray into real-world professionalism for the student choreographers. The process asked the young artists not only to create their own work, but also to collaborate with light, sound and special effects consultants.

The students were paired with undergraduate lighting designers and any other specialists they needed to realize their artistic ideas, Widrig said.

“They would talk about their vision and what the piece was about and how [the designer] could best work with that piece,” he said.

Each piece is truly individualized. Some feature background projections and props. One uses windows to manipulate the audience’s vision. Some use nothing more than dramatic lighting.

Though many of the choreographers are used to presenting their own work, this personally stylized format is new.

“I’ve choreographed a lot before but never for something that I was able to pick what lighting I wanted, pick my costumes and work with a designer to get them to be exactly what I wanted or as close to what I wanted as possible,” said Chelsea Brown, a junior dance and psychology major who is a UMoves choreographer and performer.

Brown’s piece, iContact, is one of the concert’s most complex, involving several musical scores, projections and props to convey its message.

Vaughn Midder, a choreographer and performer, Vaughn Midder, is in completely new territory. For the senior theatre major and self-proclaimed dance geek, UMoves is a journey into the world of art through movement. He said that as an outsider coming in, the process has been enlightening.

“There’s always this assumption as performing arts students, you should be a triple threat,” he said. “In working on this piece, I’ve noticed how much more feasible and attainable that actually is.”

As much as the show is about preparing these students for the professional world, Widrig assures it’s meant to be fun for the audience.

“Expect a really engaging, varied performance,” he said. “The audience sees something of pretty high value.”

While some pieces are dark, some are touching and some are more lighthearted. It’s okay for an audience not to “get it,” Brown said.

“Some dances aren’t meant to be gotten; some dances have nothing to get,” she said. “It’s important for the audience to look at the dances and not necessarily figure out what they mean, but just watch it as a performance.”

The theatre, dance and performance studies school presents selections from UMoves on Maryland Day at 12:30 and 1:30 p.m. in the Dance Theatre in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. The concert runs Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 and 7:30 p.m. in CSPAC’s Dance Theatre. Tickets are $10 for students, $20 for university faculty and staff members, and $25 for general public.