Choreographer Sarah Michelson is an artist you can trust, even if you’re not exactly sure what she’s doing. She’s brilliant at making apparently simple things bristle with half-hidden complexities and reducing complications to their essence. She puts ideas together onstage in ways that most choreographers wouldn’t have thought of. Her work can thrill you even when it’s making you uncomfortable—a risk she’s willing to take. Devotion, unusually for her, is based on a text—one by playwright Richard Maxwell. The show’s gallery atmosphere is affirmed in its choreography. Michelson breaks movement phrases into strings of forcefully struck positions, sometimes linked by passages of running. The program lists roles that include Mary, Jesus, Adam, and Eve. But Michelson’s biblical references are cryptic, surfacing almost invisibly in what amounts to a two-hour marathon. It’s a feat of endurance and devotion. DEBORAH JOWITT

March 10-13, 8 p.m., 2011