After earning his doctorate in molecular biology, Xavier Le Roy decided he didn't want to be a scientist — he wanted to make dances instead. One of his earliest works, which he reprises at EMPAC on Saturday, is all about his transition from one field to the other.

The solo piece "Product of Circumstances" jumbles together disciplines and perspectives, approximating the mix that Le Roy experienced during his years of taking dance classes every week while pursuing his biology studies at the University of Montpellier, France. Part artist, part scientist, he intersperses movement with personal narrative and detailed explanations of slides taken from his thesis, which explores gene expression and hormonal regulation in breast cancer.

Le Roy made the piece in 1998, while living in Berlin, in response to an invitation from the organizers of an event called "Body Currency." One of a number of artists working in a wide range of mediums, he was asked to present a work about science, dance and his segue between the two.

"I realized I couldn't formulate a concept or theory [about the topic] every time I tried; it brought me back to my practice, my biography, my history," he said in a recent interview. "To answer the question, I had to go through my experience and the elements of my life."

The result is an hour-long work, presented in the format of an academic lecture, which examines theoretical questions about process and product while revealing multiple facets of the choreographer's personality and worldview. "I tried to put everything at the same level," he said. "The text is not there to highlight the dance, and the dance is not there to highlight the text. It goes back and forth all the time."

Early on in the piece, Le Roy shares his growing disenchantment with science and its emphasis on conducting only experiments that will produce concrete results.

"The idea that I had about science was very different from its practice," he said. "If you have to know you'll find [something] before you search, that's a problem."

"Product of Circumstances" also traces Le Roy's development as a dancer. In his first break from the text, he steps away from the lectern and bends over, trying to touch his toes but not getting there. It's a re-enactment of a stretch he performed to loosen up during his years playing basketball, and he consciously keeps his hands about eight inches from the floor, as a way of rewinding to a time when he was less flexible.

As the piece progresses, Le Roy moves from descriptions of tissue segments seen under a microscope to anecdotes of his early forays into the dance world. Turned away at auditions in Paris because he was "too skinny" and lacked training, he began studying the technique of Merce Cunningham; he demonstrates several of these exercises in "Product of Circumstances," along with excerpts from his own later works.

He performs a section from his 1994 piece "Things I Hate to Admit" standing on a chair, and a section from "Burke," from 1997, that gives the illusion that his arms are cut off at the elbow. In the few seconds taken from "Self Unfinished" (1998), he transforms himself into a mechanical figure, accompanying each robotic movement with a self-produced sound effect.

"The movement is built out of exploration of what this body, built in this way, can produce," he said.

In the 15 years since "Product of Circumstances," Le Roy has made more than a dozen dances, including "Product of Other Circumstances," a sequel of sorts based on the Japanese dance form Butoh; "E.X.T.E.N.S.I.O.N.S," a series of public projects that used games and rules to generate choreography; and "Le Sacre du Printemps," set to Igor Stravinsky's classic composition, with movement based on the gestures of conducting.

Le Roy continues to pursue answers to the questions he posed in "Product of Circumstances," such as, What is performance? What is representation? Is the human body an extension of the environment or/and the environment an extension of the body? He may no longer be a biologist, but he's still conducting experiments, and putting the results under a microscope.

Tresca Weinstein is a frequent contributor to the Times Union