BATTLE'S PLAN: "I do a lot of cast-of-thousands work with a very big boom and lots of falls," says Robert Battle. "So, with this freedom I'm thinking that I just want to slow down." : bob emmott photography

No wonder some of Jeanne Ruddy's dancers, auditioning to work in Battle's original choreography for the company's sixth season, were a little worried. Janet Pilla says, "At the audition, we were running around so much and getting so beat up. I thought, I don't know if I want to be part of this." "It was all those falls," Renee Robinson-Buzby sighs in commiseration, "I was afraid I'd have to do one of those flat falls onto my back."

Both Pilla and Robinson-Buzby were selected by Battle, and everyone got a pleasant surprise. Because when Ruddy invited Battle to make a dance for her company concert, she just told him "to make the best piece you feel you can make." Battle was ecstatic. "Sometimes when you freelance, people just want you to remake the piece that interested them in you in the first place. I do a lot of cast-of-thousands work with a very big boom and lots of falls."

"So, with this freedom I'm thinking," Battle smiles, "that I just want to slow down."

For the world premiere, titled Still, he selected soulful music by Arvo Part, Lamentate for piano and orchestra, because he was "listening to the silence in the music." The only image he had "was of two couples in bed and a certain feeling of restlessness." He decided to work with a quartet of dancers instead of his usual full-company movement assault.

Battle, a former student of Ruddy's at Juilliard, arrived at the Performance Garage inspired by a Pablo Neruda poem called "I Like for You to Be Still." Pilla remembers, "He introduced himself saying, 'I don't know what I'm doing here. So we're just going to play.' This was very freeing for us because sometimes choreographers know exactly what they want you to do before they get to the studio." As it turned out, Battle's opening moves for Lamentate were inspired by watching Robinson-Buzby rolling her arms and shoulders warming up.

Battle gave the dancers further sense of ownership by choosing not to use counts as a way to construct the dance. (Counting is how dancers learn a dance, much like musicians.) "Being able to do this," Battle says, "depends on how open the dancers are to music."

Ruddy's crew was open. Pilla observes, "You're more mindful of what you're doing with this freedom than you are when you're relying on counts." Robinson-Buzby adds, "The movement still reaches the same peaks, it's just that the rhythm of the music makes the counts." Battle explains it best: "This is more about dramatic timing. The dancers get a chance to make choices, within limits, about when to make a move and not be held to counts."

When Ruddy saw Battle's finished dance, she asked him: "Did you go through a recent breakup?" He replied, "Possibly."

Ruddy's concert also features a reworking of Obie winner Mark Dendy's No Fear of Flying, newly restaged works by Peter Sparling (an alum of the Jose Limon and Martha Graham dance companies, now in Michigan) and Zvi Gotheiner (Israeli founder of ZviDance.)

Ruddy choreographs an abstract work to Stravinsky's Concertino, conceived as a movement study for a longer-term work about the environment, with the New Jersey wetlands and Native American lore about the "Great White Bird" providing inspiration. She says there are "lots of leaps that go up, and leaps that crash. The dancers huff and puff." (Turnabout is fair play with choreographers.) Ruddy also dances in the concert.

The company is thrilled to finally hold its annual concert at their home base, The Performance Garage. It's worth a trip to see what's been done at this old auto body shop off Broad Street near Spring Garden. With more imagination than money, and the advantage of a dancer's perspective, the Garage is being transformed into a first-rate space for performance and rehearsal.

"The work of being artistic director and executive director takes a toll on my ability to perform well and to be able to step onstage with my head clear," Ruddy says. She calls herself an "art warrior."

"You have to be passionate about doing this work. It's not for the weak. If you can think of anything better to do, you ought to do it."

Sounds like she's in the fight to the finish.

Jeanne Ruddy Dance concert, Tue., April 18, 7:30 p.m., $75 (includes gala reception), Wed., April 19, 8 p.m., $22-$25 , through April 22, The Performance Garage, 1515 Brandywine St., 215-569-4060, www.ruddydance.org