Ferry terminals are surprisingly dreamy spaces. This is especially true on wet, foggy days, when the differences between land, sea and air seem negligible, the boundaries permeable.

Such a day was Tuesday. All sorts of boundaries seemed uncertain that afternoon at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Lower Manhattan when Palissimo performed “Halt!,” a new site-specific work by Pavel Zustiak, the company’s artistic director.

In between boarding and disembarking times, the sleek, glass-walled lobby of this Staten Island Ferry terminal clears out, save for the usual assortment of stragglers, employees and other unplaceable characters. Lindsey Dietz Marchant at first appeared to have missed the boat; she pressed her body to the closed doors, and no one paid attention, even as her torso began to hinge and surge. When a group wandered over to scan the ferry schedule, she stood frozen with one foot raised and her arms spread wide: a little island apart from an anonymous mass of commuters.

Meanwhile, Gina Bashour and Jeff Kent Jacobs morphed from patiently waiting civilians to strangely contorted beings. The people seated next to them on benches couldn’t decide whether to move away, ignore them or take pictures.

Eventually, of course, the cellphone cameras came out. Those of us who had come to the terminal specifically to see “Halt!” found ourselves watching two dramas unfold: Mr. Zustiak’s and the dawning realization of passers-by that the lobby had become a performance space.

We who had come for the show could be identified by our headsets and MP3 players; provided by the company, they allowed us to choose from five original soundtracks. Mine was the aptly named “Dream,” a dense, poignant mix of instrumentation and atmospherics, with music by Christian Frederickson and sound design by Mr. Zustiak.

Muddying the line between public and private space is a driving force for Mr. Zustiak, whose work often shows people unraveling. Here, when Ms. Bashour held her arms out beseechingly, many adults looked away, brows inscrutably furrowed. Children, meanwhile, were spellbound witnesses.

The adults gave in when the dancers spread out, lunging and spinning in a strange, spatial battle of wills. Soon enough, though, they disappeared, melting into the crowd that suddenly masses before each ferry departs. Just like that, the space returned to itself.