Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- When New York dancer-choreographer Carrie Ahern had a falling out with the academics who’d offered to support her work, the market came to the rescue: Capstone Equities provided free rehearsal space in an underground bank vault near the New York Stock Exchange.

“Sensate,” a three-hour “dance installation” ending this weekend at the Brooklyn Lyceum, was inspired by Ahern’s reading of Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century philosopher who created the idea of the “superman.”

Neitzsche scholars in New York at first offered to collaborate with Ahern on the production and to help raise money. In November 2008, they asked her dancers to work gratis.

“They asked the dancers to donate their time in the spirit of Nietzschean sacrifice,” Ahern said in an interview. “Their fees are a matter of respect. I was insulted that they would use Nietzsche’s work as a justification for not coming up with the money.”

Enter Capstone. Ahern, whose work the New Yorker magazine has called “striking and original,” applied for free rehearsal space from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, which places artists in unused commercial space. For two years, closely held Capstone has lent LMCC the vault in the basement of 14 Wall Street, a space totaling 22,000 square feet.

Saved $5,000

The choreographer, four performers and a composer rehearsed about 260 hours there, saving her about $5,000.

“It was important aid,” Ahern said, adding that the vault had proven to be an artistic as well as financial plus. “You can do so many things in it,” she said. “It’s much more malleable than other space.”

Cheaper to produce than a Broadway show, dance’s lower profile and smaller audience make fundraising especially difficult.

“Even for established artists there aren’t a lot of funding sources,” said Andrea Sholler, executive director of Dance Theater Workshop, a downtown Manhattan venue.

Moreover, the throbbing, gyrating and convulsions on view at a recent “Sensate” rehearsal won’t remind anyone of “Swan Lake.”

“If there is not movement people understand, they feel uncomfortable,” Sholler said. “It’s more challenging to the viewer than other art forms.”

Yoga, Pilates

Ahern started dancing at 11 in Milwaukee. After high school, she moved to New York, skipping college to avoid debt. She danced freelance while working as a waitress and caterer. Today, she teaches yoga and Pilates.

In 2007, she was encouraged to create “Sensate” by the Nietzsche Circle, a New York non-profit that brings together artists and writers to engage with Nietzsche’s work.

After committing to help, circle members said they had no time for fundraising, Ahern said.

Rainer J. Hanshe, executive director of the Nietzsche Circle, wrote in an e-mail that he and his colleagues found Ahern’s $15,000 budget “exorbitant.”

Hanshe, a Ph.D. candidate in English at CUNY Graduate Center, said he helps run the circle without pay. He cited in his e-mail “the very large fees for the choreographer, the dancers and a composer.”

Dancers’ Fees

Ahern “refused to even talk about such fees and was completely inflexible in that regard,” wrote Hanshe, who co- edits the circle’s online journal “Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics.”

Ahern said she took no fee for herself and that the budget included pay for a lighting and costume designer and $2,000 per dancer.

“It’s like, nothing,” she said of the dancer fees she fought for. She ultimately raised $17,000 herself through a fundraiser hosted by members of her troupe’s board.

At the Lyceum, audience members can traverse the two-level converted bathhouse and come and go as they please. Ahern said she sought a format in which performers and audience have unusual freedom.

As for roughhousing among dancers in the piece, Ahern said everyone has the capacity to be violent.

“If you don’t recognize it, you’re more likely to act on it,” she said. “If we sublimate it, we are not living to our full potential.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Philip Boroff in New York at pboroff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 21, 2009 12:20 EST