Atlanta Ballet’s John McFall is a visionary iconoclast who is known for his startlingly original works and daring collaborations. So it seems only fitting that the artists of Ignition: New Choreographic Voices incorporate live spoken word and music, video imagery and massive works of sculptural art into dances they’ve contributed to the program.

As diverse as their physical and theatrical vocabularies are, Bennyroyce Royon (“Flux”), Gina Patterson (“Quietly Walking”) and Amy Seiwert (“Home in 7”) have one thing in common: a tremendous admiration and affection for the Atlanta Ballet dancers.

“They are very much like a family: very close and supportive of each other,” Royon says. “And they’re very versatile. You can throw anything at them, and they can do it.”

Technically and artistically, Atlanta Ballet dancers are superb, Patterson says. “But what’s really special is that they’re all so individual, I can really tell different aspects of the story. It adds a lot of depth and layers to the work.”

They throw themselves into their work. “But they don’t take themselves too seriously,” Seiwert explains. “It allows them to go deeply into the art, but not get mired in it. It allows them to approach what they’re doing with love and joy.”

Here is a look at some of the love and joy behind the pieces you will see.

“Flux”

Choreography is an extension of Bennyroyce Royon’s passion for dance. “I’m still a dancer, with Armitage Gone! Dance,” explains the Juilliard graduate. “I extend my passion for dance in teaching and choreography. It’s all about storytelling and sharing our experience and how I see movement.”

And Royon sees movement everywhere. “It comes from a really deep place,” he says. “All we have to do is listen to music, which is the generator of movement. Sound vibrates and, in itself, that is motion.” When he’s standing on the street corners of New York listening to his iPod, he says, it’s not uncommon for him to start choreographing in his head, rearranging the bodies and objects in front of him.

He brings this sense of interconnectedness to “Flux,” which he describes as an abstract meditation on the mystery of life, the connection between science and human relationships, and the need to celebrate every moment.

“It’s really about being enlightened and being aware that life is precious,” Royon says.

“Quietly Walking”

When Gina Patterson visited the Atlanta Ballet a year ago, John McFall invited her to spend a couple of hours with the dancers in the studio, trying out some ideas. That’s how “Quietly Walking” was born.

“I started thinking about urbanization as a theme, and Atlanta Ballet was just about to move downtown,” Patterson remembers. “Then I started to think about subway art and cities and how you turn that into a piece.”

But Patterson’s concern with urbanization had more to do with deforestation than hip-hop. During a conversation with McFall about how development could co-exist with nature, he told her a story about something he had seen from the MARTA train he frequently rode to and from the airport.

“He said that one day there were all these trees and the next day there was nothing but a wandering turkey,” Patterson says. “And that turkey has a lot to do with this piece … there’s a feeling of disconnection. We think man vs. nature like it’s two worlds, but it’s so interconnected.”

“Home in 7”

Amy Seiwert responded to John McFall’s call for Atlanta-specific dance proposals by calling someone she really wanted to work with: poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph, who attended Morehouse College.

They put together five different proposals for the Atlanta Ballet, but the one McFall said jumped off the page involved Joseph performing pieces he had written about Southern belles, the Atlanta Braves and the city’s history. After extensively researching composers, they made a recording of Joseph’s “libretto” in Seiwert’s kitchen and sent it to Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), a violinist and composer known for his classical technique and contemporary attitude.

“What Daniel did with that recording was so beautiful,” Seiwert says. “He didn’t just put poetry to music. It was where he put the emphasis, where he placed that poetry within the music … it was done with such care.”

During “Home in 7,” both Joseph and DBR perform live. And their interplay is as carefully choreographed as the steps Seiwert has put on the Atlanta Ballet dancers.

Atlanta Ballet’s Ignition: New Choreographic Voices lights up the Alliance Theatre stage May 13-15.