Karin Stevens curves her arms into a crescent moon shape.

“One, two,” she counts, and 12 limbs mirror hers. “Three, four.”

The dancers snake around each other, spinning as the piano recording soars to a crescendo. Each then separates from the pack, gliding off the floor with pointed toes and arched backs, legs in orbit around their bodies.

They are rehearsing for their second concert as part of Karin Stevens Dance, the resident company of the Fremont Abbey Arts Center.

Choreographer Stevens’ love of motion is clear even at eight-months pregnant. She flits through the studio, reviewing steps and switching songs on and off.

“I’m one of those typical female dancers that started at three years old,” said Stevens, 35. “The passion just never went away.”

Stevens, a Ballard native, earned her bachelor degree in dance from the University of Washington then completed graduate work at Mills College in California.

But, she knew throughout most of her 20s she wanted to create her own dance company. She returned to Seattle in 2007, and the company was born the following year.

The performers laughed when asked to define modern dance, though that's how to classify Stevens' choreography.

"You do not ask that question,” joked Morgan Houghton, the company’s sole male dancer.

But, there is something different about each piece, and modern is too broad a term. The movements are abstract, but they obey the nuances of the music.

“I think Karin’s work is really unique to the Seattle area,” said company member Caprice Abowitt, who graduated from Cornish College of the Arts last year. “It’s physical. It stems from a really technical place. It’s an amalgam.”

When Karin Stevens Dance formed, Stevens said she imagined a sustainable dance company that collaborated with other local artists, where the dancers—most of them recent college graduates—collected paychecks for rehearsal time.

Though they haven’t quite gotten there yet, the March show features art by Craig van den Bosch, costumes by Beki Wilson and live music from cellist Emily Ann Peterson, the Mack Grout Jazz Trio and composer Dave Chapaitis.

Stevens plans for two performances annually at Fremont Abbey, plus other shows around the community.

But, before they come together as a company, each new piece begins the same way: with a single movement.

Stevens will have an idea and just start moving, she said.

So she improvises, filming and replaying each phrase of movement and adjusting it until she's satisfied.

“Then I begin to understand the movement, and it begins to speak with me about what the piece is about,” she said.

As an example, Stevens cited a duet in her repertoire. It’s her most narrative work, illustrating a relationship between a man and a woman.

“But I didn’t say, ‘I want to make a duet between a man and a woman,'" she said. "I had a piece of music from a jazz composer, and I started dancing. I always dance and I always improvise, even at eight months pregnant,” she said. "It was from the movement that I began to see I see a woman doing this movement, and I realized this piece is about a duet between a man and a woman."

The true success is when Stevens watches a dancer come alive on stage.

"That’s part of the history of modern dance, the individual pursuit and development of the art form, so we’re not just creating a machine of dancers that all work the same," she said.

She said she hopes her audience will appreciate the complexity of the work.

Houghton said the dance's infinite layers allow audiences to take away all of the layers or any amount of the layers they desire.

Both Houghton and Stevens said they hope people will ponder what they saw after the show.

“I think that a good performance promotes question-asking,” Houghton said. “I want people to wonder about what is happening. But, I also want them to have found something that they can identify and take away—and they still want to know more.”

The Karin Stevens Dance concert takes place at 7 p.m. on March 19 and March 20 at the Fremont Abbey Arts Center, located at 4272 Fremont Ave. N. Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for under 25, and children 12 and under are $7.