The wall that stretches across the back of the Platform stage looks thoroughly solid – definitely sturdy enough for the dancers rehearsing Push to use it as an obstacle that can stop them in their tracks, or as a springboard to bounce them off in a new direction.

It will even act as a screen for video projections. But when choreographer Christine Devaney talks about the ideas in Push, it's soon clear that this new piece – premiered by her Curious Seed company tomorrow night – also deals with walls of a less tangible, but equally forceful and affecting kind.

Devaney has, in fact, been mulling Push over in her mind for several months. A two-week residency at Dance Base in May 2010 gave legs to her initial thoughts, a subsequent funding application afforded a four week period of research and development in June 2011 – and now Devaney is, as she says "pulling all the pieces together, like a jigsaw. Or maybe a dream, or perhaps a poem. Because even though there are fragments of story-telling – and we do use text, as well as movement for that – it's not a linear narrative. It's more a collage of images where you come away with feelings about certain situations, relationships, people. And maybe your own experiences lend colour to what you're feeling. So even if the stories aren't your stories, you'll sense what they're about."

These fragments and images can be tracked back to one particular mental picture that lodged in her imagination and simply wouldn't go away. "I had this one image of a child – a little girl – on a swing. I don't think I even know why..." and Devaney laughs, because that image has since propelled her into staging the most ambitious Curious Seed project yet. "And it wasn't that I especially wanted to make a piece with a child in it, but I found I was wondering what it would be like to have a child with us, in the rehearsal room during that Dance Base residency." Enter Tallulah Molleson, now aged nine and an integral presence in the final Push.

"It's not that Lulah is 'choreographed' in any specific way," explains Devaney. "It's more that her being there counterbalances what the rest of us are doing . I can remember thinking that, like the girl on the swing, if children can lose themselves in play then somehow they're fine. They're in their own world, regardless of what's going on around them. And we use that in Push to show worlds changing for people, and it not always being fine. It's about the push and pull of everyday living. When do you resist? When do you go with the flow? How much can you afford to trust other people? Your own instincts? And the wall is just a tremendous help in expressing those challenges, those conflicting feelings."

One of her own challenges – and a conflict of a kind – is how to be both a performer in Push as well as its director. Back in the early stages, when ideas were still in freefall, Devaney didn't think twice. Recruiting three other dancers – and the essential Tallulah – she headed into a studio for sessions of open-ended improvisation. Composer/musician and long-time creative collaborator Luke Sutherland was on hand to feed in soundscapes that triggered or responded to sequences of movement. Meanwhile, Devaney was drawing inspiration from the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, finding that his "in the moment' glimpses of ordinary people caught in often extra-ordinary circumstances – in the midst of dereliction, especially – chimed in with the kind of questions that were beginning to surface during this process.

"A lot of what's in Push has come from asking questions," says Devaney. "Not in any attempt to come up with answers, but just to tap into people's concerns." So as the piece went into development in 2011, Devaney put her questions not just to the Push dancers and creative team, but to the various age-groups who turned up for related workshops. "I'd ask 'what's important?' Not 'what's important to you?' There really is a significant difference. I'd follow that with 'What's not important?' then –more personal –'What are you scared of? What would you miss? What pushes your buttons?' And the answers helped shape the text that Judith Williams speaks on-stage, and they touch on what binds us to a place, what it is that we try to hold onto whether that's family, or tradition, or maybe ancient memories – all of which can be comforting but also constricting. Like a wall that can protect you and give you a sense of security - but can also keep you from discovering new things about yourself, or the world beyond it. A lot of people said in their answers that what scared them was 'getting it wrong'. And that's a wall they've built inside themselves."

Devaney knows that for some, the temptation will be to see the wall in Push as emblematic of the Berlin Wall and similar divisive regimes. "My partner listens to the news a lot," she laughs. "So I am aware of what goes on in the world. But it was the feelings those stories stirred in me that I wanted to explore. I used to have this demon on my shoulder that to be a really good artist, you had to be political – and that almost stopped me wanting, or actually being able, to create work. I've let all of that go. Now, I'm more 'just do it and go with what you feel, Christine.' With Push, it's about the feelings we all share – the hopes, fears, needs and desires that are our lives in good times and in bad. You can make those feelings physical, with dancers pushing, pulling, resisting, yielding. But we've brought in text, video, live music – cellist Robin Mason is on-stage – as well. And groups of local people will join in wherever we go, because, like with Tallulah, I want this to feel real."

Curious Seed premieres Push at Platform in Easterhouse , Glasgow, tomorrow and on Saturday before touring Scotland.