NOT every person with autism wants to be cured.

   A 2007 CNN feature on Amanda Bags, a nonverbal woman with autism, first introduced this idea to Andrew Palermo, artistic director of dre.dance, the contemporary dance company he co-founded with actor Taye Diggs.

   ”It struck a chord with me,” he says, despite having no direct personal links to the disorder. “All I ever heard was that autism was an affliction that needed to be cured.”

   Mr. Palermo began researching the condition, learning that many people on the autistic spectrum share Ms. Bags’ perspective. Inspired, he developed beyond.words, a dance that aims to challenge the misconception that people with autism want and need to be cured. dre.dance will perform beyond.words at the Peddie School in Hightstown Dec. 5.

   Parents and educators have told him that the dance is well suited to portray this concept because so many autistic traits manifest themselves physically, he says. “The movement vocabulary wasn’t difficult to come up with. It wasn’t a huge challenge.”

   The performance is abstract but contains a narrative. In three acts a boy with autism grows from about age 11 to 40, learning how to live in the world while retaining his autistic character. The abstract elements portray how a person physically manifests the condition. “A lot of it is based on research that I did — interpreting that and putting it into movement,” Mr. Palermo says.

   He asked his dancers to consider their own behavior patterns, their tics, the things they obsess over, hoping they would recognize how autistic behavior has potential in every person. The company built a dance language on their discoveries.

   ”The most eye-opening thing has been that it has affected my judgment — meaning I judge people less,” says Mr. Palermo, who put himself through the same process as his dancers. Before creating this show he was apt to proclaim every other person walking around New York City half crazy. “Now I’m less likely to do that because I don’t know what’s going on with them.”

   The autism spectrum is wide, he continues. “Given time anyone could be considered to have some degree of autism. It makes me think of the whole labeling of what is a disease and what is not a disease, which has really piqued my interest.”

   Though he believes we should be more accepting of autistic behavior, he notes that the show is not meant to “glorify autism,” he says.

   Mr. Palermo now regularly teaches children with autism at the JCC in Manhattan. “It’s a continuing evolution and education to make sure I’m understanding this completely, so I’m not pegging any one take on this,” he says. His students with autism “have very specific ways of learning, like all of us except a little more blown out.”

   Both Mr. Palermo and Mr. Diggs attended School of the Arts in Rochester, N.Y., an alternative public high school, where they became best friends and completed some dance choreographing together.

   Starting dre.dance was “kind of a no-brainer,” Mr. Palermo says. “We both respect each other. While our styles manifest in different ways we have the same training, so we see through a similar lens.”

   Today Mr. Palermo is the sole artistic director of the New York City-based company. Mr. Diggs lives in Los Angeles and stars in Private Practice, the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff that premiered in 2007. Despite balancing his acting career and family, Mr. Diggs, who is a new father, contributes to dre.dance “whenever he can,” says Mr. Palermo, who splits his time between theater and dance.

   ”What I love of concert dance is that there are no rules,” he says. “You can do whatever speaks to you. I love the fact that within the same work I can draw from every influence and it’s acceptable. I don’t have to be narrow-minded in any way. I can do what I want to do. When you’re working in theater, there are a lot more cooks in the kitchen. Dance is a pure creative outlet. There are few things more pure than how the body moves.”

   Mr. Palermo deliberately keeps production notes sparse so as not to influence the audience’s experience of the performance. The fact that one piece can be interpreted in myriad ways pleases him.

   beyond.words premiered in Wichita, Kan., in September 2008, when dre.dance was performing in residency at Wichita State University. They produced a special collaborative version in which dance program students joined the company. Around 30 people were on stage, whereas now the dance uses a cast of nine or 10.

   Nico Muhly composed nearly the entire score. “His music very much coincides with what we’re doing,” Mr. Palermo says. “There’s this bumping up of beautiful and elegant sounds against these jarring, cyclonic sounds. That’s what you hear about (from relatives of people with autistism). This paradox of calm to storm.”

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  beyond.words will be performed by dre.dance at the Mount Burke Theater, Peddie School, Hightstown, Dec. 5, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $10. Artistic Director Andrew Palermo will conduct a short Q&A with the audience after the performance; 609-944-7550; www.peddie.org; www.dredance.com