Last week, in the third-floor brick apartment that also serves as her company’s studio on Great Jones Street in the Village, Elisa Monte rehearsed the eight dancers of Elisa Monte Dance. The temperature outside had dropped into the single digits, but inside the mirrors clouded with the steam and sweat of the eight young men and women in mismatched practice wear. As the group of dancers circled together, the men gripped their partners at the ribs, lifting them up above their shoulders, and then slowly letting them melt back down.

Ms. Monte, the petite, black-haired choreographer known for her melding of sensual movement with tough physicality, stopped to clarify the tricky musical counts. The highlight of her company’s season at the Joyce, which starts tomorrow, is the U.S. premiere of Ms. Monte’s epic, three-act work about September 11, “Via Sacra.” But it will kick off with the world premiere of this work – a very different type of work, with the curious name “A Woman’s Way (To Nancy, With Love From Tom).”

The “Tom” of the title is money manager Tom Klingenstein, a principal at the investment firm Cohen, Klingenstein & Marks, who commissioned the work as a birthday present for his wife, Nancy Perlman. (That it will be performed so close to Valentine’s Day is a bonus). Almost a year ago, Tom, her husband of 18 years, surprised her with the gift on her birthday, which he announced during a toast at a black-tie dinner for 40 at their Upper West Side home.

“It was the best present he’s ever given me,” Nancy told me – a sentiment that isn’t hard to believe.

Interestingly, “A Woman’s Way” isn’t the first dance work on stage this season commissioned as a gift from husband to wife: Just this past December, as part of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s winter season at City Center, the company premiered David Parsons’s “Shining Star,” a gift from Citicorp Chairman Sanford I. Weill to his wife, Joan, a company board member, in honor of her birthday.

In part, such very personal commissions reflect the need by choreographers and company to become more creative in their search for financial support as government money and even private business donations have diminished. “It’s less about grants and more about finding individuals who are now becoming responsible for making the art happen,” Ms. Monte said about the new fund-raising environment. Her last three pieces have been commissions.

The Ailey Company actually has a tradition of gift-giving, according to the executive director of the company, Sharon Gersten Luckman. Ailey himself created “Cry,” his signature solo work, as a gift to his mother and to all mothers everywhere; 10 years ago, Donald L. Jonas, a board member, permanently endowed every performance of “Revelations” as a present to his wife. Gifts in the form of scholarships have also been a common practice for years, according to Ms. Luckman.

For Ms. Monte’s much more modest company, this was the first foray into creating a commissioned gift. But she knew the couple well. From her first introduction to Monte Dance 14 years ago as a volunteer grant writer, Nancy Perlman developed a close personal tie to the choreographer. “The com pany has so enriched my life, and I have friends who have gotten involved as well because they’ve seen how much it means to me,” she said.

She served as head of the company’s board for four years and is now acting as chair emeritus.

Mr. Klingenstein’s involvement with the piece was not just financial: He wrote a lengthy letter to Elisa detailing his feelings about his wife. For some choreographers the intimate involvement with another person that a commissioned work requires might cause problems, but Ms. Monte said knowing what Mr. Klingenstein wanted helped her with her process. “For me it’s a gift to me, as well, to do my art,” she said, “and I think there is a real freedom because for everyone who has commissioned me I listen to their concerns and then creatively I try to find the point of integration where my ideas meet theirs.”

There has to be a mutual trust for the benefactor and the artist in order for the piece to work, Ms. Monte said. To create her work “Shekina” she collaborated with Leonard Nimoy to make a dance about his photographs. While making the piece, they discussed their ideas together and Nimoy attended rehearsals and suggested the music. “He’s an artist, so he knew how to step back and let me do my work,” she said. Before that came “Light Lies,” a dance about Josef Albers’s theories of light, which the Albers foundation commissioned Ms. Monte to create in honor of a retrospective exhibit at the Pompidou Center in Paris.

Nancy and Tom have only been to one open rehearsal and will see the piece for the first time in its entirety when it premieres Tuesday. Ms. Perlman’s mother is flying in from Arizona, her sister from Denver, and a friend from England. “It’s a gift of a lifetime, it’s tied together so many things in our life and the act itself is as creative as the piece,” she said.

Ms. Monte, who once danced with the Martha Graham Company, remembers how Graham continued to struggle to find funding well into her 90s. “Even when her company was successful, even when she was the most recognized American choreographer in the world, she worked for it,” she said. “It’s a good lesson to learn. You have to find creative ways to get people to support your work. Gifts like this are wonderful – they allow me to do my work, and support my company and the dancers.”

Elisa Monte Dance at Joyce Theater until February 6. “Vejle” “White Dragon,” and “A Woman’s Way (To Nancy, With Love From Tom)” and “Dreamtime” will be performed February 1, 3 & 5 at 8 p.m. and February 6 at 7:30 p.m. “Via Sacra” will be performed February 2 & 4 at 8 p.m. and February 6 at 2 p.m. (175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, 212-242-0800).