After celebrating their 30th anniversary last year, the Ohio-based BalletMet Columbus returned to the Joyce Theater with an oddly-programmed show of seven ballets that grew increasingly less interesting as it went along.
The two opening works — Jimmy Orrante's "Ad Infinitum" and Adam Hundt's "Bang, Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" — are nothing more than choreographic pleasantries, yet offer lovely terpsichorean small talk. Orrante set his bubble-gum ballet to a medley of Simon and Garfunkel favorites, while Hundt used a punchy Nancy Sinatra song to accompany his tricky duet driven by clever manipulations of dancer Emma Misner's long circular skirt.
It was the centerpiece of the first act, "The Audacious One" by Warren Adams, that proved to be the finest work on the program. A ballet with real dramatic bite, it features three couples in black business attire playing cutthroat games of power, loyalty, and elimination under the direction of an unsympathetic leader. Adams's mixture of sharp, explosive phrases of neat classical choreography with deeply-contracted modern dance moves is masterfully rendered by the company, who give consistently appealing performances throughout the evening.
The program began to weaken with David Shimotakahara's "Sweet," an unbearably repetitive duet, sensually danced by Annie Mallone and Jackson Sarver, that consists of repeated rollings and wrappings of bodies around one another. The proceedings perked up a bit with Darrell Grand Moultrie's "Square Off!," a wonderfully energetic ensemble piece that, though entertaining, is an aesthetic mishmash. Moultrie couldn't decide if he wanted the work to be a neo-classical ballet, a folksy hoedown, or a vaudevillian comedy.
Following the intermission, things went downhill fast, beginning with the Act II pas de deux from David Nixon's Dracula. Set to lulling Arvo P채rt music, and constructed of unimaginatively simplistic movements performed at a largo pace, the piece is quite possibly the most boring duet I've ever seen. Closing the evening was Stanton Welch's interminable "Play," a minimalist ensemble work danced to a Moby score. David Grill's smokey, patchy lighting made it extremely difficult to see the dancers, who mainly engaged in repetitions of short patterns of pedestrian action.
Self-presented at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave., NYC.
Sept. 30-Oct. 5. Remaining performances: Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.
(212) 242-0800 or www.joyce.org.