Every year, audiences crowd into the American Dance Festival's theaters to see the biggest and brightest as the dance world's most incandescent stars fall to Central North Carolina to display the sparkle that's procured them their secured places as the pride of their form.

But the ADF also reveals young choreographers who stars are rising-artists with the talent and savvy to someday occupy prime positions, but whose careers are yet in the greener stages; artists who are now beginning to ripen.  The Emerging Generation Project boasts three companies that now teeter on the verge, but who will all undoubtedly cross the line into recognition and respect.

Chamecki Lerner will debut Hidden Form, a new piece commissioned by the ADF.  "It's about the phantoms we create in our minds and how we choose to deal with them," says Rosane Chamecki, co-director and co-choreographer of the company with Andrea Lerner.  "How they sometimes take over our existence and how we eventually live with them."

Chamecki and Lerner were students together in Brazil and collaborated on their final project for school.  They moved together to New York several years ago, working apart on various projects.  "We each needed to find our own voice," says Chamecki.  A few years later they began working together, offering their first full evening length show in 1993.

"Everything that we've lived through is reflected in our work," Chamecki says in regards to the significance of their shared Brazilian heritage in their pieces.  "I think that all background is constantly informed everything we do, though not always as a conscious choice."  Movement is detail-oriented, examining the body through a magnifying glass and animating certain parts at specific times.  "It's natural movement of life, but amplified," she says.

Over the course of their partnership, they've choreographed six full-length pieces, four shorter works and three pieces for other companies.  They recently received a proposal from a company in Sweden to do a work that requires their working on the same piece but individually, half choreographed by Chamecki and half by Lerner.  "We haven't worked separately in a long time," says Chamecki.  "Sometimes you look at what you've done and question, how much is me and how much is her.  Right now everything is both of us."

When Pam Tanowitz Dance premiered Monument at Tribeca Performing Arts Center last June, Pam Tanowitz herself was deep in the throes of morning sickness and had to watch from the sidelines.  when it was performed at the Guggenheim Museum in March, Tanowitz had recently given birth, and again stood aside while a quartet of dancers realized the piece. But when it's performed at the ADF, Tanowitz will finally find herself onstage in what she's come to think of as her signature piece.  "I've spent years trying to figure out what kind of dance I want to make," she says. "It's like my navy blue suit in a way.  It's a good example of what I'm doing and what I want to do."

The choreographer has been working in New York for the past 10 yeas and with the four dancers in her company for at least three years each.  After earning degrees from Ohio State and Sarah Lawrence, she opted to concentrate first on choreography rather than performance.  And as a choreographer, she's chosen to coax her style from what inspires and moves her rather than attempting to create something completely new.  "I like to pick and choose what I like, and arrange it in a new way," she says. "I'm very attracted to traditional ballet and older modern, so I take that and filter it through my eyes."

This means Tanowitz has eschewed video projections, spoken word and all the trappings of multi-media performance in exchange for a leaner, more pure execution. "I'm not saying that I don't like that work, but for me I go for a more traditional angle.  All the boundaries of art have been broken, so my job is to put it together in a way that makes sense to me."

For Monument, that meant embarking with an idea--the wish to create a great piece of art in tribute for Tanowitz's late mentor, Viola Farber--and approaching it in a different way than she usually worked.  "This was a very process oriented piece," she says.

Previously Tanowitz had focused on shorter pieces that she produced quickly.  For Monument, she gave herself a year to create it, which resulted in a new precision and attention to details that has permanently altered her approach to her work.

Monument took off quickly, and just at the time when Tanowitz thought things were slowing down enough that she could take a break and start a family.  She was unable to perform in previous incarnation, but will be happily taking the stage at the ADF performance.  "I haven't danced full out for a year," she says.  "It was really important for me to perform at the ADF."

"The piece is , for me, very emotional and visceral," she continues.  "As a younger artist, I feel it's important to know what's come before me.  This piece allows me to acknowledge the past while going forward."

While Tanowitz takes a traditionalist approach to the craft, Mark Jarecke travels in the other direction.  "I think it's really important in generating and keeping and audience to provide a full evening experience for people."  In Jarecke's terminology, a full evening includes working with fashion designers, make-up artists, documentary filmmakers, architechts, new music and ultimately even engaging senses usually ignored--"I'm thinking of doing aroma work, bringing smell into the experiences."

Being able to follow your nose to one of his performances has yet to be realized, but film and video are strongly featured in his ADF piece. "What it's about for me, which is not necessarily what it's going to be about for the audience, is the idea of distance and perception changing with distance."

Jarecke's brother is a photojournalist who did a book about the Persian Gulf, and his work is incorporated into the piece.

"It used to be that when something was covered, the person would be there and write about it for a large group of people.  More and more the writers are in New York or Washington D.C.  Instead of technology bringing things closer, it can get them further apart."

The three companies showcased in Emerging Generation may share drive, ambition and determination.  But they're a troika of vastly different artists and performers, demonstrating that the furture of dance is nothing if not diverse.