The Dance Works series at Cleveland Public Theater opens this weekend with a program that challenges assumptions about performance. Seattle-based Lingo takes over the Parish Hall space for a work called "Inhabit," which mixes dance with food, drink and easy conversation, in an event during which the audience is free to move about the performance space with the dancers.

Since these are all elements of cabaret, we asked Lingo artistic director K.T. Niehoff if she thought of "Inhabit" that way. She replied, "Cabaret to me is a kind of entertainment. We think of our audience more as guests. There's more interaction; the membrane is more porous. We try to set up a situation where people feel relaxed, safe, comfortable. As the evening goes on, we hope that the guests let down their guard and feel more participatory, yet the roles stay clear. We don't ask the audience to perform, but to engage."

To that end, audiences for the performance will be limited to 50 people. "You need room so you can move around," said Niehoff. "The space has a party-like feel so people can interact. We're interested in an intimate exchange. We start out right away bringing our guests in, taking coats, asking people their names."

We asked Niehoff about the talking in "Inhabit," since, to our minds, talking in dance is hardly strange - Cleveland audiences have seen a lot of postmodern dance wherein "talking is dancing." ""Inhabit' is not a dance piece," replied Niehoff. "Dance is a large element, but humanity, dialogue, atmosphere, food and wine are also elements. It would be strange if we didn't talk. We're sitting right next to you. A bunch of people running around, gesturing, mute, would be strange. We're trying to operate on a human level rather than on a performative level."

Cleveland dance audiences have previously seen Niehoff's works performed by GroundWorks Dancetheater: "Tipping Point" and "Proximal." Do those two very different pieces throw light on "Inhabit"? Are Niehoff's "Inhabit" dancers different from GroundWorks' ballet-trained dancers?

"The companies are different," Niehoff replied. "I consider us [Lingo] contemporary dancers. We have eclectic backgrounds. The first piece I choreographed on GroundWorks, "Tipping Point" - one of its needs was precision so I played to that group's strengths. I was interested in giving them a different physical experience than they're used to, maybe, but they're pretty versatile dancers."

SPEAKING OF GROUNDWORKS, we also talked to artistic director David Shimotakahara, artistic director of GroundWorks, who is bringing "Sweet," a Cleveland premiere, to DanceWorks. "I created it for BalletMet Columbus last summer," Shimotakahara explained.

"It was one of 30 dances they commissioned from 30 choreographers for their 30th anniversary concert. [It was] nuts, but a lot of fun. You had five hours of rehearsal with the dancers." He laughed, "I certainly would budget more than five hours, normally. But they liked "Sweet' so they brought it up to Akron for the Summer Festival performances. I understand that they've kept it in their rep, that they just performed it again in February." We've had time to really work with the material [since then] so I think it's going to have a nice performance here. It's a duet, five minutes long; the music is by Bobby McFerin."

GroundWorks artistic associate Amy Miller will also have a new piece on the CPT program. "Amy's working with all of us [dancers Felise Bagley, Damien Highfield, Mark Otloski, Sarah Parrett and Shimotakahara] in an improvisational way: She's interested in finding different qualities of movement."

Miller is a relatively new choreographic voice on the local scene. We've been impressed by her work, so we're looking forward to seeing this as-yet-untitled piece.

GroundWorks also has two repertory pieces on the program. "Latitude," choreographed by Shimotakahara, and featuring the live musical performance of one-man-band Hal Walker (aka Steam Engine Hal) "is a delicate balance," explained Shimotakahara. "Hal's not improvisational, but he's playing without a score. It's really important that we listen."

Gina Gibney's "Duet from Several Truths" is the other work from the company's repertoire. "Gina [a one-time Clevelander, now based in NYC] is such a good artist," says Shimotakahara. "I love dancing the piece with Amy."

The artistic director's substantial role as a dancer in this concert is another illustration of how theoretical his retirement from dancing has been so far. Damien Highfield, however, is learning this role, contingent on that time when Shimo retires for real.

INLET DANCE THEATER'S artistic director, Bill Wade, ran down his program for the DanceWorks series, beginning with a world premiere set on the company by guest choreographer Stephen Wynne. "He asked what kind of piece I was after, so I said, "I want to drop you off at my studio and stop by at the end of the day and see what you've done,'" Wade laughed. "So he started playing with the dancers and set "Out of Nowhere' on them from scratch. It's a really good fit. It's very theatrical and it has a lot of social psychology in it. With his European, tanztheatre background he's coming from a very different place than what's normal around here."

We were positively impressed by "Skirting the Heart," another of Wynne's pieces set on Inlet, so we look forward to this premiere with interest.

Asked about "Age of Isolation" (2007), his group piece set to music by Philip Glass, Wade began by describing his recent trip to Easter Island on an Ohio Arts Council International Artist Exchange Program.

"It is the world's most remote inhabited island but I kept seeing people who embodied issues of cultural identity. For instance, I saw a guy riding by on his horse, covered with traditional Rapa Nui tattoos, long black hair with beads, talking on his cell phone." Wade was repeatedly struck by images of incongruous cultural juxtaposition. Then he had another epiphany.

"Hanging out at one of the local dance studios - a hut on a slab - I was talking with the high-school-aged kids, and I flashed back to the YARD; those kids on Easter Island are like the kids in the YARD in that they're have-nots in clear eyeshot of abundance. Tourism is big on the island, with nine planes a week and cruise ships docking. So in "Age of Isolation' I created a group that lives on an island, seeing images of abundance through screens, losing touch with their indigenous arts."

New and very different dances in the Inlet repertoire are "Dances from Rapa Nui" (Easter Island). Wade explained that the international artist exchange and a host of high-level sponsors brought traditional choreographer Akahanga Rapa Tuki and Rapa Nui dancer Joanna Pokomio to Cleveland for two weeks where they taught these dances to the Inlet dancers.

"These are dances that the Rapa Nui have been doing for hundreds of years, dances that date back to the monoliths and cannibalism! In one of the dances we're literally telling the opponent who's just landed on the island what we're going to do to them - kill them, eat them and take their powers."

Costumes, we're told, are traditional with an emphasis on authenticity. "My boys are painted head to toe with traditional paints made from volcanic materials."

A new solo piece on the program is "a character study of a male modern dancer. Gravity is the unseen force. The dancer "is off-center for the whole dance. He's pretty bruised up from working on it," Wade says.

Another "guy dance" like "This Might Hurt," we asked?

"Exactly. Some day we'll have enough guy art for a whole concert."

The program also includes "Tides and Solitude" (1996) which was set on the company by Sally Wallace and "Dream of Sleeping" (2003), Wade's dance about sleep that we think of as one of the better modern dances on that oft-attempted subject.

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A THREE-RING CIRCUS OF DANCE: Cleveland Public Theater's DanceWorks has grown this year to occupy three venues and present nine companies in six weekends, with movement styles from balletic to post modern to circus. Tickets: $10-$20. Call 216.631.2727 or go to [url=http://www.cptonline.org] cptonline.org[/url].

March 13-16: "Lingo" (Parish Hall), "Fear of Falling" (Gordon Square Theater)

March 20-22: Not Exactly Danceworks (Gordon Square Theater)

March 27-30: GroundWorks Dancetheater (Gordon Square Theater), Inlet Dance Theater (James Levin Theatre)

April 3-6: Tikvah Company of Artists (James Levin Theatre)

April 5: Sneak Reviews / MegLouise Dance (Parish Hall)

April 10-13: Double Edged Dance (James Levin Theatre)

April 17-20: MorrisonDance (James Levin Theatre)

Lingo: Bianca Cabrero and K.T. Niehoff.