The dancer Ashley Leite spun wildly across a studio in SoHo recently, rehearsing her new solo work based on Wonder Woman, the comic book heroine and 1970s television icon. Coming to an abrupt stop, she struck a confrontational pose, before turning as rigid as a mechanical doll and swinging her head from side to side. To anyone who knows the work of choreographer Stephen Petronio, whose company she danced with for eight years, her last moves might look strikingly familiar.

“I worry all the time that my work will be like Stephen’s,” Ms. Leite said later. “It’s hard not to do things like he does. After all those years, his body is in my body. But I am finding my own voice.”

In an exceptional reunion, Ms. Leite and seven other former members of Mr. Petronio’s troupe, now all choreographers in their own right, will present their work in the newest Dancemopolitan series at Joe’s Pub on Thursday and Friday nights. As host of the engagement, Mr. Petronio picked the theme “Villains and Heroes, the 100 most influential people who (n)ever lived,” challenging choreographers Gerald Casel, Kristina Isabelle, Ori Flomin, Jeremy Nelson, Jimena Paz, Todd Williams, Ellis Wood, and Ms. Leite to create portraits of a wide array of formidable characters.

Mr. Petronio is a hard act to follow. Since establishing his company in 1984, he has made a considerable name for himself here and abroad with electric, erotic, provocative work that is as deep as it is hip.

“I give them challenges — challenges beyond reason,” Mr. Petronio said of his versatile and daring dancers. “I like to keep them amused and laughing. I ask them to solve problems all the time so that they become very comfortable solving problems. I want them to work without fear, even look ugly if necessary. If I empower them to create, I feel I am doing my job.”

Choreographers and dancers have always had symbiotic relationships. Dance lives in the bodies of the people who create and perform it, not on paper or video, and it is passed on in studios, not in classrooms. If they want to become choreographers, dancers have to learn to integrate the influence of their artistic directors into their own work, and make something new. This is not an easy feat. Critical reviews often condemn a young choreographer for being a poor imitation of his or her mentor. Mr. Petronio, who first danced with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, escaped that criticism, though he would quickly acknowledge his debt to Ms. Brown.

Ms. Leite, who left Mr. Petronio’s company in 2005, credits him with giving her the requisite confidence to pursue a career as a choreographer.

“Stephen is incredibly trusting of his dancers,” Ms. Leite said. “He taught me to trust myself. He told us to honor our instincts and not get too much into our heads. I also learned a lot from him about how to use music and space, but the main thing he gave me was the ability to believe in myself.” Ms. Leite has already begun to make a name for herself; in the next few months, she will choreograph a new work for a Chicago company and present work at both the Jacob’s Pillow dance festival and Dancespace.

Ellis Wood, a member of Petronio’s company from 1991 until 1994, is creating a work for the Dancemopolitan engagement called “Maculate Conception,” with a female Jesus as the hero. Dressed in skimpy black organza costumes during rehearsal in a studio at the Tisch School of the Arts on the Lower East Side, Ms. Wood and her dancers strode into a circle to a pounding punk version of the Christmas song, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” They then broke into a flurry of activity, shaking each other’s hands, clutching each other and stretching out their arms in supplication.

Knowing Mr. Petronio’s embrace of punk culture, Ms. Ellis intentionally pays homage to him with this music. “I’d had other influences before I got to Stephen,” she said. “My parents danced with Martha Graham and my sister with Paul Taylor. Plus I took a lot of gymnastics. So whatever I learned from him got mixed up with everything else. I most appreciated his sheer craft and how he could move dancers so fast and furiously through space. I wouldn’t mind people seeing that in my work.”

For Todd Williams, who danced with Mr. Petronio’s troupe from 1995 to 2001, the experience of being with such a provocative modern dance choreographer was especially freeing, as Mr. Williams had previously been a member of the New York City Ballet. “I enjoyed being real with the movement,” he said, “with no posing and attitudinizing. That’s what I mainly took from Stephen — an ability to use my classical technique in an entirely new way. I also got a strong sense of structure and composition from him, which of course, he learned from Trisha Brown,” Mr. Williams said. “If we all didn’t show some sign of Stephen’s influence it would be a terrible shame.”