In her interview, Kate Hutter of L.A. Contemporary Dance Company asked her fellow Celebrate Dance 2013 artists: How is preparing for a group presentation different from presenting only your work? Are there other factors you take into consideration? Do you feel any pressure to be the best or the crowd favorite?

Here are the answers we have received so far.

Francisco Gella
Founding Artistic Director
Nuevo School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD)

The most important factor, from my perspective, with creating work for a group presentation is to take into consideration that the piece being performed stays true to the company's style, mission statement, and uniqueness. Of course there is added pressure because in the back of my mind I want to ensure that the work being premiered is also optimal in terms of technique and artistic integrity. The issue is not feeling the pressure of whether the work is the crowd favorite but instead if the choreography and performance impacts the audience, catches and retains their attention and after it is all over, the work is memorable.

Laura Karlin
Artistic Director
Invertigo Dance Theatre

I try to keep that kind of pressure out of my world because all it would do is freak me out and paralyse me in the creative process. I don't have the same delicious movement vocabulary as Lydia or the same virtuosity as Kujo or the same dynamic-coolness of Kate. . . or the same anything of anyone. So I'm not competing with them - which is good because everyone in this show is an amazing artist in their own right and I want to be excited about their work, not intimidated. I'm making work about a subject that's really interesting to me at the moment, so I focus on that.

I think the point of Celebrate Dance (or one of them anyways) is that we are there not to rank the companies on a vertical spectrum but to look at the incredible breadth of creativity on a horizontal spectrum. Our natural tendency is to try to decide which was the "best" but wouldn't it be great if the audience walked out talking about the different pieces on their own terms? We're celebrating the LA dance scene as a community!

And this is way different from presenting only our work in a show, because I don't have to produce the show - which means I don't stay up late at night worrying about the production side of things (thanks, Jamie!) but on the hand, I don't get to control everything. . . and that's a little weird for me :)