KICK START: Emmanuel Brown (foreground) jumps at the chance to perform in Peregrine Arts' Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon! : w. irwin

Squire, who has been assembling the working components of Peregrine for at least two years, is a disciple of holistic artistic management. He places an R. Buckminster Fuller quote in all of his literature which says, in part, "Society operates on the theory that specialization is the key to success, not realizing that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking." In his grand scheme, arts managers, performers and audience will inhabit the same world, in defiance of the barriers that now exist among these constituents. "We are multidisciplinary, but at a very different level than the Kimmel Center." He is especially focused on eliminating the "animosity between performers and management" that he sees as prevalent in the arts world. The vision, instead, would be "a large, loosely knit family."

Peregrine's creative approach to budget management has emerged in a number of ways, but especially in its relationship to the composer and performer Fred Ho. Ho is probably best known to local new music fans for his Condradiction, Please! (The Revenge of Charlie Chan), which was a repertoire piece for some time for Relâche (a group, not incidentally, that Squire was executive director of for four years). Ho, an established figure on the New York scene and elsewhere, will forego his usual fee levels for his Peregrine work. "It's not like a regular gig for him," says Squire, "we are going to add value to his work through the process."

Ho is next up on the Peregrine schedule, with the fully staged premiere of his music theater extravaganza Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon! The work is drawn from the Japanese cult of martial arts film and adult comics series known as manga, and Ho ladens it with social and historical themes. He is especially interested in the concept, direct from the manga world, that the antihero becomes the actual protagonist. Ho says, "The disenfranchised become the harbingers of revolt. All values are thrown into question." Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon! is set during the transformation of Japan from feudalism to the modern industrial state, with an inevitable erosion of old values. The work is, in conception, an apt archetype for Peregrine, crossing many disciplines and designed to appeal on a number of levels of sophistication. It opens with a frenzied battle sequence, to be executed by a crack team of nine martial artists. A six-piece musical ensemble, led by Ho on the baritone sax, will include such native instruments as koto and shakuhachi flute.

This will be an unintentional world premiere for Peregrine; "We kind of stole it," says Squire, who heard it in a workshop and invited Ho to do the fully produced version here. More significantly, Ho has signed on to remain involved with Peregrine for at least three years, with more new works to come, including a wholly new work Dragon vs. Eagle, scheduled for a 2008 opening.

The public face of Peregrine Arts will continue to be live presentations. In addition to the Fred Ho works, Peregrine will present two music theater events featuring the music of Gavin Bryars, The Sinking of the Titanic, and Who Killed Erdnase?, in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Hidden City will be a site-specific work, similar in concept to Locus Solus, produced by a team of artists. It is on tap for 2009. Less visible, but of essential value to Squire, is the balance of the production and research sides to Peregrine. Peregrine presents itself as a four-sided organization (presenting, producing, research and consulting), but Squire views the division in a more yin/yang sort of way. "It's not a four-legged creature. I think of us more as a two-legged beast with two toes on each foot."

Hmmm … Sounds like a character in some future Peregrine show.

Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon!, Sat., June 24, 8 p.m.; Sun., June 25, 3 p.m., $30, Mandell Theater, 3210 Chestnut St., 215-760-1634, www.peregrinearts.org