A new twist on 9/11: choreographer Stephen Petronio debuts "City of Twist," set to the music of Laurie Anderson and honoring New York. (Dance).

Like many New Yorkers, choreographer Stephen Petronio was left feeling raw after what he calls the "brutal ax of September 11." As a downtown artist, he says, "my earth was rocked. My backyard, my art playground, was threatened." It reminded him of the AIDS crisis in the early 1990s. "When I first became active in the gay community and worked with ACT UP, I wondered how I could go into the studio with this health crisis happening and so much to be done on a social level--emotionally, legally, and civilly. I decided to set myself the task of trying to make something as resonant and important as that social work."

Then, as now, Petronio got into a high-gear creative mode.

The result is "City of Twist," a premiere work for his dance company to be performed at New York's Joyce Theater October 15-20. Petronio, who excels at postmodern structuralism, decided this time to take a more emotional route with Iris latest choreography. "I'm not letting myself go back into what I understand," he explains. "A lot of my queerness is about moving on and moving into new territory."

A good deal of the inspiration came from his musical collaborator for the piece, performance-art and music legend Laurie Anderson, whose style springs viscerally from the streets of New York. In "City of Twist," Petronio conjures up an urban landscape of characters: portraits based loosely on the nine dancers with whom he has worked intimately.

The title also refers to his unique choreographic vocabulary. "I'm drawn to the twist theme because my dance language is based on torque and a line that twists away from end points," he says. "I like the emotional, sexual, and gnarly aspects of the word as well."

On the same program with "Twist," Petronio, now 46, is debuting a solo for himself, the latest in a series he has choreographed over the last decade. "Broken Man," set to the music of Blixa Bargeld, unveils a persona from the unconscious "caught in a loop and dysfunctional."

Petronio's career, however, has been anything but dysfunctional. Before he established his company in 1984, he was a featured performer with Trisha Brown's dance troupe. As an established international choreographer (and a survivor), he says he now feels the responsibility of a mature artist: "It's my job to get at the heart of art-making right now."

Carman also writes for The New York Times.