There are many ways to prepare a delicious meal. Television shows like “The Bear” show chefs working with painstaking precision to get every small detail just right.

Artistic director Ma Cong uses an opposite analogy when referring to Richmond Ballet’s New Works Festival.

“Sometimes you watch cooking shows where there’s a chef in Singapore cooking with a big wok,” Ma says. “They toss all of the ingredients in with a big fire and, boom, it’s done. And people taste it and go, wow, this is amazing.

“That is kind of the concept with this festival. Everything has to go really, really quickly.”

For the New Works Festival, Ma has selected four choreographers from around the country whose challenge is to develop an original 10-minute ballet in just 25 hours. Each choreographer has half of the company’s troupe of 30 dancers to work with and, over the course of five days of five-hour rehearsals, a new work emerges.

Ma says the pressure cooker environment is a good test of a choreographer’s skills. “They have to be extremely well prepared before they get here,” he says. “They have to have music ready and a very clear structure in their mind before they dive in. It is very challenging.”

For Natasha Adorlee, who is a filmmaker and musician in addition to being a choreographer, the time crunch is clarifying: “When I have to make a decision, I don’t have time to wrestle with it. It’s just like, yeah that’s the decision; let’s move forward.

“You become more economical but also more strategic.”

Strategic time management is essential for Adorlee, who has several projects going simultaneously most of the time. She is currently preparing world premiere pieces for companies in San Jose, Chicago and Oklahoma City.

“I have been a workaholic most of my life,” she says. “I don’t know if I’d even call it work. I’m just like a creative-aholic. If I’m not building dance, I’ll end up in a craft store on a Sunday buying watercolors. I’m like, what are you doing? You don’t have time to do this.”

Ironically, Adorlee had abandoned dance about 15 years ago before being lured back in.

“I was 19 and my body at the time was just feeling empty, I wasn’t feeling inspired,” she says. “I needed to open the lens and look at what else was out there creatively for me.”

Adorlee was working as a musician and a DJ when a chance audition with ODC/Dance in San Francisco re-invigorated her passion for dance. The leadership at the company supported her folding other facets of her creative expression into their contemporary pieces.

“I love dance. It’s my favorite medium,” Adorlee says. “But I have so many other aspirations: working in film, directing films, writing music. I feel like it all informs the studio work so much more.”

Adorlee is just one multi-hyphenate among many who will be choreographing for the festival. David Morse is also a teacher and an accomplished pianist who has danced for the Cincinnati Ballet and the Charlotte Ballet.

Price Suddarth and Serkan Usta both run dance-related organizations. Suddarth founded Jumpkut Contemporary Ballet company in Seattle and Usta is the owner and director of the School of Classical Ballet and Dance in Des Moines, Iowa.

“All of the choreographers that I chose are personally linked to my experience as a dancer, choreographer or artistic director,” says Ma. Tulsa Ballet is the nexus point for two of them: Suddarth choreographed a piece for the company and Usta and Ma danced together there. Ma choreographed two new works for Cincinnati Ballet when Morse was dancing for the company.

Ma returns to a food analogy when talking about the pleasures for the audience in attending the New Works Festival. “There’s a video introduction before each piece so they get a little insight about each work,” he says. “Each choreographer has a very different approach and a different style, so there’s a lot of variety.

And it’s four pieces that are each approximately 10 minutes so, if we talk about a menu, it’s like a really satisfying and flavorful tapas dinner.”

Richmond Ballet’s “Moving Art Three: New Works Festival” takes place March 19-29 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 200 North Arthur Ashe Blvd. Tickets and information available at https://richmondballet.com/.