With a warm laugh, choreographer Mary Sheldon Scott says some reviewers have described her collaborations with composer Jarrad Powell as “serious.”

“I think we’re looking for a kind of deep humanity to come out of the work, rather than just entertaining,” explained Scott, who isn’t bothered by the assessment, which, just for the record, was meant to be positive.

Scott/Powell Performance will bring its latest piece, “Geography,” to the Myrna Loy Center Friday, Feb. 1, at 8 p.m. The piece was co-commissioned by the Myrna Loy Center, along with Seattle’s On the Boards and the National Performance Network.

Serious or not, whatever Scott and Powell are doing, it’s working. The duo has completed a dozen projects and developed an enthusiastic audience in the Northwest over the past 14 years.

Scott and Powell met at Cornish College for the Arts — where Powell is a professor — and began collaborating in the early 1990s. Powell says he was unsatisfied with previous collaborations with choreographers because he felt more like a subcontractor hired to write some music for a dance, rather than a meaningful artistic contributor.

Despite his earlier experience, Powell wanted to continue exploring how visual elements could complement and work with sound.

“Dancers always seem to be more open minded about music than musicians,” said Powell, who agreed with his fellow musician John Cage when he said “Dancers find my work useful.”

For Scott, the first project she did with Powell was not just a coming together of creative forces, but a meeting of the minds.

“So much of what he brought in enriched my dialogue with myself,” she said. “We could put (ideas) down between us and both be really excited about them.”

A rigorous commitment to strong ideas and an equal collaborative playing field have been the keys to success for Scott/Powell Performance. Both artists develop their work with the idea that it could stand on its own; both artists have a say in the final outcome of each piece.

“And that actually, I think, leads to better work,” said Scott. “The performance experience is enriched by having two fully fledged media there.”

“We approach the work as a totality,” said Powell. “We’re trying to create a theater for image and music and sound.”

“Geography” is a project that was inspired by shifting natural and urban landscapes and how those changes affect humanity and the way we live. In the studio, Scott says she explored words like lifted, climb, broken, pushed and pressed.

“These concrete words were forcing me to invent and find movement that expressed that word for me,” says Scott.

For his part, Powell, who grew up in Montana, says the word didn’t just make him think of nature, but also of other “landscapes” — emotional and otherwise — that informed the sound for the production.

“It’s just a term that felt kind of provocative,” said Powell, whose score incorporates electronic music, acoustic sound, spoken word and piano.

Because Scott/Powell Performance is so familiar to the Seattle-area audience, Scott said she’s looking forward to sharing “Geography” with dance enthusiasts in Helena.

“We’re very excited to be bringing it,” Scott said.

Tickets to Scott/Powell Performance are $15 adults and seniors; $10 students. Call 443-0287 or go to www.myrnaloycenter.com.