Who made them feel mighty real?

It was born from Ferver’s fantasy: playing with friends. As a gay child growing up in Wisconsin, he didn’t have many. What he had was bullying, and it was incessant.

“I learned how to make myself small, discreet,” he said, “to disappear so that I wouldn’t get hurt.” At the same time, he wanted to perform. “That psychic polarity of wanting to be public while also feeling I had to disappear to be safe really began to emerge as I was making this show.”

The aftereffects of a traumatic childhood have long seeped into Ferver’s work, a collection of wild, tragicomic dance-theater pieces. For his aptly named “Everything Is Imaginable,” which opens at New York Live Arts on Wednesday, Ferver, 39, has assembled four glamorous friends at the top of their dance game to explore the ideas swirling around sexuality, longing success and loss.

The cast features James Whiteside, a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre; Lloyd Knight, a principal of the Martha Graham Dance Company; Garen Scribner, a former member of San Francisco Ballet and a Broadway actor; and Reid Bartelme, a costume designer and dancer whose career has straddled both ballet and contemporary dance.

Ferver began by asking each performer to name a childhood idol; he then choreographed solos based on that person. The first two weren’t entirely surprising: Whiteside’s idol was Judy Garland, and Knight selected Martha Graham. But Scribner, who trained as a child to be a figure skater, threw a curveball when he named Brian Boitano. “All of a sudden one of my cast chose a man,” Ferver said, adding that growing up gay, “I certainly didn’t identify with any male characters I saw on TV or in film.”

Bartelme gave Ferver even more to marvel at: He chose My Little Pony. “What I loved is that Reid loved a toy, an object that embodied some sense of play,” Ferver said.

In choreographing the solos, Ferver thought about creating a “psychic space” for his performers that incorporated who they were as children and who they are now.

For Whiteside, a classical (if exuberant) dancer, the solo was challenging. “A lot of the beauty of Jack’s work is seeing virtuosic dance done on his body,” he said. “It looks very serious when I do it, and at first that was something that I found took away from the performance.”

He discovered a way his approach could make sense: “Judy was polished from a young age to appear a certain way, and the same thing with me,” Whiteside said. “Even through all that, you can’t mask what’s underneath.”

Ferver has a solo and icon of his own: Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle/Catwoman in “Batman Returns.” “She’s this geek who gets killed and then turns into this revenge person who can’t accept intimacy,” he said. “I really get that. I deeply feel that I run on two tracks: Love and revenge, I wish I could tone my revenge back. But I can’t. It’s just my nature. I’m a Scorpio rising.”

“Everything Is Imaginable” also includes a group number in which the cast seems to be transported to a nightclub — it’s a reference to the men lost to AIDS — and duets, including one for Ferver and Bartelme, who are especially close. They have known each other since 1996, when they were students at Interlochen, an arts academy in Michigan; they reunited in New York in 2007.

Up to that point, Ferver had tried to erase his past — but that was no longer possible with Bartelme in his life. “When you’re known you’re vulnerable,” Ferver said. “So to have him onstage with me has been about how to create dynamics for myself where I can be vulnerable as someone who has learned how to not be to protect myself.”

And a little over two weeks ago, Ferver was forced into accepting his vulnerability even more. He tore his calf, an injury that he sees as being woven into the very fabric of “Everything Is Imaginable,” which is about the shattering affects of trauma.

Ferver can’t jump; his injured leg cannot withstand full weight. His therapist advised him not to travel forward. The second half of the show has changed dramatically because of this — for the better, he said. (Mercifully, his Catwoman solo remains, altered accordingly.)

An actor and a dancer inspired by Martha Graham, Ferver is also a dexterous writer who takes humor seriously. How do we lead viewers into “the dark end of the woods?” he said. “Beginning with something more known: funny, entertaining, accessible. They can breathe.”

In the days leading up to his performances, Ferver and his cast met at Gibney, in Lower Manhattan, where the choreographer was given a Dance in Process residency. As artist Jeremy Jacob worked on sets for the show, the dancers rehearsed and took some time out to talk about their solos. Here are edited excerpts.

James Whiteside, 33: Judy Garland

Before I knew that Judy was a gay icon, I loved her. I was probably 9 or 10. I could sense, even as a child, that there was something a little off about Judy. She’s intense and visibly damaged, and her performances have a harried quality to them. As a ballet dancer, I relate to that. I have a sort of emphatic enthusiasm that I can’t seem to put away. And that’s really one of the first things that drew me to her: this gritty magnetism.

Lloyd Knight, 34: Martha Graham

Jack loves Martha Graham, and I love Martha Graham. In the first rehearsal, he played the spoken word from “A Dancer’s World” (the 1957 film about the choreographer), and you hear her voice. I went crazy; I almost started crying. It’s very out-of-body to be dancing and to hear her voice.

Also, you might not necessarily have a character in your head, but the movement is giving you feeling. I feel a little bit sentimental. There’s a feeling of loss. And I definitely have the feeling of being strong — stronger than life.

Garen Scribner, 32: Brian Boitano

I only skated for about 2 1/2 years. As a 7-, 8-year-old I knew I was different, but I didn’t know I was gay. Brian wasn’t out — no one was really out in the industry. There was something so athletic and artistic about what he did on the ice, and I probably saw something in him that I saw in myself that I couldn’t yet place or name. I saw a reflection. That’s what this is all about. I wanted to look back at that time and remember the feeling of being out there and the freedom.

Reid Bartelme, 37: My Little Pony

So when Jack came to us with the idea, everyone had a character who was a famous person, and I had a toy. I’d rather play a pony than play a person. I don’t like the idea of being an impersonator or really doing traditional acting onstage, but I don’t mind embodying something.

I don’t remember when I got my first My Little Pony, but it was probably when I was 2 or 3. Anything with really long hair, I have to say was right up my alley. The ponies were good. And you know why? They had hair on their head and hair on their tail, and they came with good brushes so you’d brush their hair. And if you brushed it around your finger, it would hold the curl and then they looked lovely.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.