Playing with fire

Take McIntyre’s “The Sun Road,’’ one of several works he brings to the Institute of Contemporary Art in November for the Boston debut of his new full-time company, Trey McIntyre Project.

McIntyre is one of the dance world’s most in-demand choreographers, with a body of more than 80 works created for companies ranging from New York City Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet to Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Last year, Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts commissioned the 21-minute “Sun Road,’’ requesting a piece about how climate change is adversely affecting Glacier National Park in Montana.

McIntyre initially dismissed it as an “absurd’’ idea for a dance, he says. But when he visited the park, ideas began to emerge. He brought back his dancers to videotape them in the natural environs, and the process of creation took off.

In “The Sun Road,’’ the video is integrated with live performance and set to a score ranging from ambient park noise to a Native American powwow to songs by Paul Simon and Nina Simone. Instead of being a safe, respectful homage to the natural world, the piece is designed to highlight humanity’s dangerous disconnect with nature by juxtaposing contrasting ideas and images.

But McIntyre is no avant-garde firebrand. Boyishly handsome at 39, the 6-foot-6-inch choreographer has earned acclaim for an appealing, direct style that puts balletic grace and athletic energy to the service of human concerns: religion, family, superstition, relationships. Maure Aronson, director of World Music/CRASHarts, which is presenting McIntyre’s company in Boston, calls him “one of the most talented young choreographers in the US.’’

Born and raised in Wichita, Kan., McIntyre began choreographing at the age of 12, partly in reaction to what he considered the monotony of ballet class. He tells the story of skipping class one afternoon and showing off some dance moves to a friend in the adjacent parking lot. His teacher, catching sight of him through the window, invited him back to class to teach some of his movement phrases to his peers.

“Choreographing is how I figure the world out,’’ McIntyre explains by phone. “Whatever’s going on in my brain and psyche, I work it out that way. When I’m not in the studio, I go a little crazy, stop functioning properly.’’

After studying at North Carolina School of the Arts and the Houston Ballet Academy, McIntyre danced for six years with Houston Ballet, where artistic director Ben Stevenson created the role of choreographic apprentice and choreographic associate especially for him.

McIntyre left Houston Ballet at 25 to freelance as a choreographer. (Maina Gielgud asked him to consider choreographing a work for Boston Ballet before her 2001 departure from the company.) He was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch’’ in 2001 and one of People magazine’s “25 Hottest Bachelors’’ in 2003 (he is in a committed relationship with dancer John Michael Schert, executive director of his company).

McIntyre established the critically acclaimed Trey McIntyre Project in 2005, first as a summer pick-up troupe of first-rate ballet dancers. Just last year, he made the commitment to launch the company full time, touring during the first season to more than 25 cities around the world.

Current Boston Ballet soloist Lia Cirio danced with him last year. “I believe I am a different dancer and person because of it,’’ she says. “I learned the importance of working for a common goal - for the good of the company, not just myself, which can be very difficult in a larger company; connecting with my partner in a real way, really seeing who that person is; learning to develop a role on a deeper level each time I dance it.’’

Instead of taking the traditional route with a home base in a major cultural center, McIntyre settled the troupe in Boise, Idaho.

“Coming from Kansas, I have a natural pioneer spirit,’’ he says, “and I like the idea of going to a community that’s young artistically and building something. For me, it’s always about moving forward - not just growing, but evolving and changing, making that big leap.’’