In a rehearsal for “Into Being,” a world-premiere contemporary dance piece for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, a pair peels off from the ensemble and flows to the left side of the stage.

In a duet, the dancers writhe around each other, pausing and posing here and there, and then they create an unusual form: One bends back, supported by the other’s leg. The taller, larger dancer leans on the smaller. It’s a far cry from the trope of the leaping ballerina, held at the waist by a muscular, possibly shirtless, male dancer, aiming for an illusion of anti-gravity. No — both dancers in this duet maintain an equality in their individuality. What jumps out is not weightlessness but strength.

“Into Being,” which premieres on Hubbard Street’s winter program Feb. 29 to March 3, is a return migration for contemporary choreographers Alice Klock and Florian Lochner. Together, they are known simply as FLOCK, a name duetted together that has become synonymous with a type of dancemaking that constructs forms out of multiple dancing bodies, a style that plays well on Instagram to the pair’s more than 90,000 followers.

The two first met as dancers in Hubbard Street a decade ago. Klock, 35, danced with the troupe from 2009 to 2018 and Lochner, 33, from 2015 to 2019. The pair now spends its time living suitcase lives, creating and performing dance itinerantly. A tour last year took them to Colorado, Chicago, Seattle (Klock is from an island in Puget Sound), New York and Germany (Lochner is German).

The unconventional back bend in “Into Being” spotlights the two individual dancers, a signature element of FLOCK’s style, whether they’re setting a dance for themselves or, as with Hubbard Street, for others. Klock and Lochner entered the studio at the beginning of the rehearsal period with an abstract concept about genius and its obsessive propulsion toward creation, ready to apply it to Hubbard Street’s personnel.

“We didn’t prepare any steps,” Lochner said. “We were like, ‘We want to build it for the dancers. We want to know their uniquenesses and build a piece around that.’”

The piece uses five dancers who interact in many permutations. Sometimes solos or duets emerge from the texture, and sometimes all five interweave, as they do in a passage reminiscent of the human knot game.

“It’s like a game of Twister,” said Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, the artistic director of Hubbard Street, now in her third full season heading the company. “Put your hand on red, put your foot on green, put your head on purple — but purple isn’t on the board.”

Some observers may look at these structures built of bodies and termed them “architectural.” FLOCK finds that characterization off target — it’s too static for their protean style.

“We like building what we call ‘machines,’ which are complex, many-people partnering setups which involve so many shifting landscapes and shapes,” Klock said. “[We] zoom out our eyes and think, ‘What is the painting that this amoeba of humans is creating?‘”

Moments of stasis in the piece, surprising structures where weight is borne in unusual ways, create not buildings but tableaus.

“‘Tableau’ is a nice word because it still has a cleanliness and a clarity,” Klock said. “Our [style] is a little more painterly perhaps.”

It’s not surprising that “painterly” would appeal to Klock as a descriptor. She is also an accomplished visual artist in both paint and ink.

The emphasis on the individual means de-emphasizing traditional formulas, especially regarding gender. Hidebound principles like “men lift women” feel simplistic next to FLOCK’s work, where the dance dictates the roles of the dancers, not the other way around. The choreography allows for any dancer capable of the steps to step in.

And in fact, “Into Being” has two casts, which Hubbard Street labels Sapphire and Ruby.

“An audience could come back and see two female-presenting bodies present the same duet that the night before two male-presenting bodies had done,” Klock said. “They could have a really different experience of the same choreography, but also the same experience of the same choreography.”

If FLOCK celebrates the individuality of each dancer, so Hubbard Street welcomes the many styles in the pluralistic universe of contemporary dance, juxtaposing different choreographic personalities on the same program.

“I don’t want Hubbard Street to be defined by any one class of movement,” said Fisher-Harrell, an alum of the famed New York-based modern dance company Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. “I’m always bringing in new ways, new voices for the company to express themselves. FLOCK’s unique way of movement fits in beautifully.”

Just as the portmanteau of their names into “FLOCK” seems impossibly perfect, Klock and Lochner say their choreographic partnership runs remarkably smoothly.

“There is a shocking lack of tension in our relationship in general,” Klock said. “Chemically it works well.”

Which is not to say their dance minds are identical — just complementary. Klock says she likes things a little messy, where everyone is wild and crazy, while Lochner is more “form and function.” They have worked together enough that they can anticipate what the other would say, as if telepathically.

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“They’re like little parakeets in a way,” Fisher-Harrell said. “You see them physically put their heads together and come out with the same very unique idea.”

Lochner, in the rare times when he’s working alone, occasionally asks himself, “What would Alice do?” Then he tries to step outside his first instincts.

“That’s just a game for myself that keeps me from going the same pathways I always would go.”

And Klock, if working alone and facing a bit too much chaos, imagines Lochner’s chiding, “Alice, just do the work. Just clean it.”

“We do have different styles, but we talk about it kind of like a braid,” Klock said. “They just braid together very harmoniously.”

It’s a braid audiences can see — and ponder — in a program that also includes the world premiere “Echoes of Our Ancestors,” by Maria Torres, and “Dear Frankie,” a company favorite by Rennie Harris.

If you go: Hubbard Street’s winter series program “Of Hope” runs through March 3 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 E. Chicago Ave. Program B, which includes “Into Being,” runs Feb. 29 through March 3. Tickets are sold out. Standby policy can be found at hubbardstreetdance.com.

Graham Meyer is a Chicago-based arts journalist.