It's midway through a rehearsal for Full Radius' spring repertory concert, and dancer Margo Gathright-Dietrich is trying to figure out a way to smoothly push dancer Ardath Prendergast from a handstand into a prone position. The atmosphere in the rehearsal room is convivial, friendly and fun, but definitely work-minded. "Try pushing with your arms more fully extended," suggests dancer Tommy Gates. "I hear what you're saying," Margo says and laughs. "In most bodies that would work, but not in this body." Typical of rehearsals everywhere, the dancers of Full Radius try to meet their choreographer's demands, discovering and surpassing the limits of their own bodies. But unlike most dance companies, many of the dancers in Full Radius -- including both Gathright-Dietrich and Gates -- are in wheelchairs. Full Radius, originally called Dance Force, was formed in 1991 by dancer Douglas Scott, who moved to Atlanta from Kentucky where he grew up and studied dance at Western Kentucky University. He first began teaching the disabled when a program called Very Special Arts Georgia gave an open call for teachers: The two other dancers who were meant to lead a workshop along with Scott dropped out of the program, and Scott ended up leading the workshop alone, which led him to his calling. "First off, we're all very open and frank with one another," Scott explains about his company's method of working together. "Someone can say, 'No, I don't want to try that right now.' But that really doesn't happen that much anymore. Everybody's game to try anything. It's all about building trust. Most of my dancers have been with me for a while. I would say it took us a good two years of working together to really build the level of trust we have now. We do dangerous things. But we talk a lot during rehearsal. And sometimes we just play and explore." Full Radius' annual Spring Concert will include "Tattoo of the Past," "Mutation" and "Drumset," pieces that range in tone and style from the light and upbeat to the serious and reverential, all of them precise and technically demanding for both the able-bodied and the chair-bound. "Mutation," for example, is an elaborate series of Pilobolus-style configurations, rolls and carries in which all three dancers move around the entire stage. The recital, titled Before There Was a Word, uses music, mostly percussion, and text including poems by Billy Collins and Paul Monette. "Wheelchairs don't dance," says Scott. "It's people in the chairs that dance. We relate to the person, not the chair. A frequent comment that we get that tells us we're on the right track is someone will say, 'I didn't even notice the chair.'" The use of dancers in both electric and hand-operated wheelchairs, along with able-bodied dancers, makes for some innovative and unusual movement possibilities. "We certainly don't fall into: The man always lifts the woman or that the female dancer is a sweet young thing that needs support all the time," he says. "We do things like partnering two males or two females. If you come to our concert, you'll see women lifting women, you'll see men lifting men, you'll see men being tender and intimate with each other, and you'll see women doing the same. You'll see both sexes pissed off at each other." All of the dancers in Scott's group are professionals, giving full-time commitment to the company. Dancer Sasha Gresky is the only chair-user in the country to have completed a college dance program, graduating with a BA in dance from Texas Women's University. One of Scott's goals in the next three years is to get all of his dancers under contract so they can get weekly salaries, instead of being paid on a per performance basis. In addition to its performances at 7 Stages, the company also offers classes that are open to the community, day camps for children at the Center for the Visually Impaired, educational programs and demonstrations in schools. "I'm passionate about different ways of moving," says Scott. "I was already investigating trapeze work and stilt-walking and all these other ways of moving before I started this. I discovered working with my dancers that it makes me re-evaluate everything I knew about dance and movement before. It has contributed greatly to my growth as a choreographer and artist. It's really for selfish reasons that I do it."