The artists responded to the high pressure request by creating inspired beautiful dances, engaging monologues, beautiful paintings and photographs, interactive experiences and awe-inspiring songs and poems.

Dance Marathon at UCLA, a student-run AIDS organization was on hand to get the audience on its feet by teaching them a morale dance from a past dance. A short new uplifting choreography is taught every year at Dance Marathon, a 26-Hour dance to raise money for pediatric AIDS.

2008 marked the third year for 48 Hours to Action, which began in 2006 in conjunction with the arrival of the Keiskamma altarpiece to UCLA. Each year the event has taken on a slightly different shape with the altarpiece in 2006, Anurupa Roy performing puppetry in 2007, and L.A. hip-hop group the Elevaters featuring Adam Stern in 2008. What endures is the sense of urgency the process creates, and that people leave the theater having been part of a creative activist community.

Plans for 2009 are well under way and include South African performance artist Pieter-Dirk Uys training a group of student performers to act as company for the show.

For more pictures on this project, please click here