"A dance-theatre evacuation," publicity proclaims. What the hell is that?

"It started with one image," says director Dan Rothenberg, staging Love Unpunished side-by-side with Headlong Dance Theater's David Brick. "I was haunted by the idea of people running down the stairs and meeting firemen going up."

Love Unpunished explores 9/11 on a personal, visceral level, less literally or "objectively" (if that's even possible) than films United 93 or Oliver Stone's anticipated World Trade Center, perhaps closer to Denis Leary's cable series Rescue Me, plumbing individuals' complex responses. "This piece is an attempt to acknowledge how many times I've played that scenario in my own mind," Rothenberg explains, "to slow down and acknowledge everything contained in that single second."

Sept. 11, Brick acknowledges, "has a lot projected on it: heroic things, tragic things. We bring a subtle desire to dig through, to reach more intimate—not understanding, but contemplation—of the event."

Mimi Lien's massive set—four stories of cement-and-steel WTC stairwell—provides an intimate setting for this incomprehensibly huge event. "9/11 is a massive lightning rod for feelings of helplessness," Brick notes. "There's a lot imbedded in this moment in our culture. Around the bannering of what this means"—the sweeping proclamations, the pious sentiments—"there's a lot of impotence and helplessness."

When Rothenberg and Pig Iron co-founders Dito van Reigersberg and Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel suggested this, Brick recalls, "We talked about death, about going past the secular humanist view of 'just don't think about it' to spend more time thinking about 'What does it mean to die?'"

"David has introduced a contemplative movement language," explains Rothenberg, "a lot of people going up and down stairs making a rhythm like a metronome. Like minimalist music, things change subtly over time; there are some recognizable scenes"—but little dialogue—"that suddenly shift into surrealism."

Expect the fascinating, provocative images that make Pig Iron's work so seductive, but also confounding. "Pieces like this," Rothenberg admits, "are not character-driven. When people see dance, they don't look for characters first, but with plays, they do."

Love Unpunished isn't quite dance or play—but, as always with Pig Iron, promises to be much more than either.