A box of chocolate may be just that, but to choreographer Meghan Durham, it's plenty more. Chocolate, she explains, represents "sexual desire and indulgence," and when a dancer dives into a box of the stuff, devouring some pieces while spitting out others, during a work titled "at the root of the longing/last supper," the activity is intended to suggest something greater. "The idea is that she's making different choices about what she likes and does not like, and the wrappers become like bread crumbs to find her path in life," Durham says.

Numerous food references crop up in "at the root" as well another ensemble work titled "Grace," both of which are part of Appetite, a presentation by Durham's company, Merge Dance, appearing at the Painted Bride Art Center this weekend. And while featured props include real bread, a cake, plus a slew of apples, Durham's thoughts are chewing on more than meets the eye. "I'm really looking at the complex and satisfying relationship of food as it relates to spiritual sustenance. So it's food as a metaphor … and the idea of hunger and satiation as a perpetual cycle."

The 48-minute production demonstrates Durham's proclivity for interdisciplinary theatrical experience. "I'm always informed by visual art, writing and language," she says. "This piece includes a bunch of images, some that I've taken myself and some that I've acquired, just to support the ideas that we are embodying."

Appetite is packed with action, much of it inspired by Durham's fondness for kinesthetic movement. "It's really about working through space," says Carrie Brueck, a member of Merge who notes that Durham's movement style "has a very logical flow to it—it's very logical within the body."

Meanwhile the show itself, which features disjunctive motifs, is decidedly nonlinear. For instance, one might expect a solo titled "Epilogue" to come at the end of a program; here it runs in the middle. As Brueck observes, "It doesn't go from A to B to C to D, it goes B to C to A to D. I think personally that will draw the audience in—it challenges the viewer to step up and participate."

Similarly, while Durham can readily delineate details behind segments of this production, her rendering of ideas is often experimental and abstract. A section where the cast brushes its teeth is about cleansing. When dancers gesture with their hands—fingers clasped to look like they're glued together—and then occasionally slap the hand away, it's supposed to imply inner dialogue. "My undergraduate degree was in linguistics. I'm picking up on that," says Durham. "It's about how we self-talk to ourselves. Sometimes it's really judgmental and sometimes it's just, 'I'm all right.'"

Everything's well thought out in Durham's head, but she admits Appetite is a concept work. "For me it's about the idea of gestalt, things coming into the foreground and background. But I do not expect any level of specificity," she says.

Whether the audience grasps what she's getting at is not imperative; even so, the choreographer wants the piece to "be meaningful. … It's not important that the audience know my exact reference. My intent is that there's a mood and experience that is created and that there's enough space in that for people to recognize their own reference."

Appetite, Merge Dance, Fri.-Sat., Jan. 20-21, 8 p.m., $10, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215-925-9914.