It was the kind of happenstance that can occur in the aisle anywhere. But the compactness of the theater inside N.C. Dance Theatre's home made it likelier.

Heading back to my seat after the first intermission, I passed choreographer Dwight Rhoden. I said hello, and as I moved on, I overheard him telling someone he was switching to a seat father back - which also means higher-up, in the 200-seat theater. He doesn't like to be too close to the stage, he said.

That might have been less of an issue at the other, bigger venues NCDT uses. As audiences make acquaintance with the North Tryon Street theater during "Innovative Works" - NCDT's first show in its year-old home - each of us, like Rhoden, will be feeling out where we like to sit.

On Thursday, there were open seats here and there. So, before the company took off into Rhoden's "Alleged Dances," I followed his example and sat farther back, myself. I got his point.

"Alleged Dances" the finale "Innovative Works," starts with the dancers in side-to-side rows across the stage. Each row plunges into its own rapid-fire series of poses - each one as dynamic as a freeze-frame of calisthenics.

If you watched all this straight-on, with the rows smashed together in your line of sight, it would probably look like a jumble. But from farther and higher, with a clearer perspective, it's a dynamic panorama. If you go to "Innovative Works" and see an open seat, think about experimenting.

The note in the program says "Alleged Dances" is an abstract work that toys with the concept of "the hypothetical." To me, "Alleged Dances" unfolds like a showpiece - a series of exuberant vignettes, with miniature curtain calls built in.

It's Rhoden at his most action-packed - taking his cue from John Adams' hard-charging music for strings. Especially with Rhoden's side of things, excitement and even playfulness shine through. That's especially true when Sarah Hayes Watson gives a breezy, flirtatious turn to a scene with David Morse and Naseeb Culpepper. Morse and Culpepper are two of NCDT's tallest men, and their long limbs radiate Rhoden's energy.

It's a sweeping finish to a program that is mostly lyrical - and a bit exotic in the case of David Ingram's "I," the opener. Inspired by a sequence from the film "Akira Kurosawa's Dreams," it is a fantasy about a boy who watches a wedding ceremony of foxes. From the creatures' wary but dignified entry to the simple finish with the boy alone, "I" is poetic and haunting.

There is actual poetry in Mark Diamond's "How Do I Love Thee." It's tied together by Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous verse, recited a phrase or two at a time by the four dancers.

Diamond shapes the four into contrasting couples. Melissa Anduiza and Pete Walker are the more ardent, animated pair. Jamie Dee and Ingram are more reserved. But they give Diamond's choreography a luxuriance that says their feelings are just as intense.

The two couples in Sasha Janes' "Last Lost Chance" are more pensive. But Watson, Jordan Leeper, Anna Gerberich and Pete Walker show there's a lot of feeling contained in that. The partnerless Melissa Anduiza, as a sort of odd woman out, adds drama.

After a couple of surprise turns, the quiet close may be a bit enigmatic. If you think so, the after-performance mingling with the company will give you a chance to ask about it. Or maybe you, too, will talk with a choreographer in the aisle.