Even though Starr Foster has put together a “Page to Stage” event twice before, each iteration of this literature/dance hybrid has resulted in delightful discoveries.

One of the biggest surprises in the new show is that one of her dancers is also a talented poet.

To create “Page to Stage,” Foster takes inspiration from submitted written works, choreographing a wholly original dance corresponding to each piece. In the upcoming show, there are seven dances inspired by a wide array of sources, everything from a multi-page memoir excerpt to a story that is only six sentences long.

Included in the program will be the duet “Good Mourning,” inspired by a poem written by company dancer Fran Beaumont.

“I’ve never ever thought that any of my writing could be good enough to submit to anything,” says Beaumont, a member of Foster’s troupe since 2016. Pushing through her reticence, she brought Foster a poem she’d written in 2014 that she considered one of her best.

“It was a big step for me to put it out there but as soon as I sent it to Starr, she was like, ‘I love it. Let’s go.’”

“I actually felt immediately inspired by it,” says Foster. “Then I decided I wanted to cast her so she’s also in the dance.”

Beaumont loved that idea: “For me, [this dance] is very personal so it just adds the other layer to the work.”

Beaumont’s poem captures a feeling that happens at the end of a relationship. “It’s that moment you realize it’s over and you’re mourning the passing before it’s even finished,”  she explains. “You don’t even realize that you’re not looking at the person the same way you used to.”

Beaumont says the resulting dance feels like a fight. “It starts out very relaxed and very intimate,” she says. “Then it gets to a point where you’re like, ‘Oh man, these people are going to bite each other’s heads off.’”

In the past, Foster has approached Richmond-area writers she knows for submissions but another surprise in “Page to Stage III” will be the inclusion of a work by someone she had never heard of.

Yolanda “Y.B.” Taylor’s poem, “Middle Passage,” is a frank challenge to modern day Americans to remember the terror of the Atlantic slave trade. Foster initially was uncomfortable adapting it.

“Yolanda sent me a collection of poems that are all from the perspective of a Black woman,” says Foster. “I was nervous about tackling them; I wasn’t certain it was my story to tell.”

Foster always does a lot of research related to the writing she adapts and “Middle Passage” required a deeper diver than usual. “I have found that many people don’t know what the Middle Passage was,” she says. “So I realized that the dance, inspired by Yolanda’s words full of passion and anger, could also have a historical perspective.”

Taylor eased Foster’s discomfort about adapting her poem but she hasn’t yet seen the results. Now that the show is about to open, Taylor’s the one feeling anxious.

“I never thought I would see my work interpreted and performed,” she says. “So I’m a little nervous. Starr said I was free to attend rehearsals but I decided against that. I want to be surprised.”

Taylor, who turned 70 in September, emerged as a writer relatively late in life, self-publishing “What I Know…Poems of Life” in 2009. She has put out eight more books since. Her work often reflects on her personal journey that includes being Huguenot High School’s first African American homecoming queen in 1971 and one of six African American students to integrate Albert H. Hill Junior High School in 1966.

“Middle Passage” is featured in her 2024 collection “Joy!” and she wrote it while flying home from a trip to Europe.

“My husband gifted me [the book] ‘The 1619 Project,’” she remembers. “I was reading and was just overcome emotionally. I wrote the entirety of [the poem] on the plane.” The poem contrasts her trip across the Atlantic with the horror of Africans crammed into boats during the many decades of the slave trade.

“I do not know what the choreography looks like,” she says. “But I am hoping that it gives a sense of the atrocity, the inhumanity of it all. Nothing was handed to us on a silver platter and everything that we are now is because of our refusal to give up.”

“Page to Stage III” runs from Thursday, Dec. 5 through Sunday, Dec. 8 at Firehouse Theatre, 1609 West Broad St. Tickets and more information available at https://www.starrfosterdance.org/.