After numerous people repeatedly suggested she start her own dance company, Starr Foster did just that. And with the legal meetings and paperwork finally completed, Richmond can now claim its own modern dance company, The Starr Foster Dance Project. Its premiere concert, “First Annual Choreographers Showcase,” runs Feb. 11-13 at Artspace.

The upcoming show features nine works by nearly a dozen choreographers, most of them from Virginia. When word got out that Foster was planning the concert, so many dancers called her to express interest that she is already planning a second showcase. This weekend’s show includes Jennifer Tweel and Bill Dufford of Charlottesville’s Zen Monkey Project; New Yorker Shannon Hummel, a guest artist at James Madison University; and works by Robbie Kinter, Kat Legault, John Bailey, Stacy Pfeifer and Sue Ginel, and Renee Robinson.

Foster will premiere “Jilted,” a quartet that “suggests things are not always what they seem,” she says. And though she shies away from dancing solo pieces, she’s agreed to perform Bailey’s “Tintinabulum,” a percussive piece “as primal as the big bang, as legendary as the bells of Notre Dame, and as transcendent as a gamelan orchestra,” she says.

In addition to three concerts already scheduled (in Charlottesville on March 25 and at Grace Street Theatre on May 5-6), the company is planning to offer workshops and lectures. Also in the planning stage is a two-week summer camp. This is a company that plans to keep its members busy and provide opportunities to the public.

To back its many projects, The Starr Foster Dance Project will hold a fund-raising party on Feb. 19 at 6:30 p.m. at Artspace. Participants can view works in progress and meet the members of the company.

The Starr Foster Dance Project’s “First Annual Choreographers Showcase” takes place at 8 p.m. Feb. 11-13. Tickets are $5. Call 782-8672 for