Keigwin + Company in Two Premieres at the Joyce Theater Keigwin + Company: From left, Aaron Carr, on back, Matthew Baker, Brandon Cournay and Gary Schaufeld in "Contact Sport," at the Joyce Theater. In Larry Keigwin's new "Contact Sport" four men dressed as schoolboys stand in front of a sparkly blue curtain. The gloriously pseudo-European voice of Eartha Kitt sings "Come on-a My House" in Japanese, and the dancers shove one another around with a combination of speed, design and play that signals choreographic wit. A good time, it seems, is in store. Would that the rest of the hourlong Keigwin + Company program that opened at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday delivered. Each of the four dances displays Mr. Keigwin's superior craftsmanship and close attention to music, but the overall impression is of a talent inhibited, an imagination tethered. In "12 Chairs" (like "Contact Sport," a premiere) 12 dancers sit in 12 folding chairs. They slouch back, lean forward, slide out of the chairs and rearrange them. Mr. Keigwin keeps supplying variations, but the energy keeps slumping, standing up only to sit back down. Apart from a move in which the dancers fold their chairs and slide them along the floor in one motion, there's little inventive use of the props. Several times, when an individual is isolated by a spotlight, you expect something to blossom - some humor, some dark strain - but nothing breaks the pattern. "Trio" is much softer, almost a balletic pas de trois, but without balletic precision. Aaron Carr, Kile Hotchkiss and Emily Schoen circle one another in Liz Prince's pleated skirts, the men bare chested. Mr. Keigwin responds to Adam Crystal's handsome, marimba-brightened score with close, follow-the-leader canons. The men swing Ms. Schoen between them, but when they partner each other, she waits: an interesting third-wheel dynamic that isn't developed. Although the underlining of the skirts is hot pink, "Trio" fades out. In "Contact Sport" the interpersonal dynamic is clear and engaging. The four schoolboys could be siblings. Mr. Keigwin grew up as one of four brothers. At its best the roughhousing is quick and light enough to suggest the rapid-fire dialogue of a 1930s film comedy, the bow-tied Gary Schaufeld earning most of the laughs. A solo for Matthew Baker introduces a delicious sensuousness that's arrestingly broken by cramped gestures. But the dance reverts to its beginning, its single idea colored slightly differently by a different Eartha Kitt recording. As much as this return to the fold may be true to fraternal bonds, Mr. Keigwin's over-reliance on circular form gets, as Kitt repeatedly purrs, "monotonous." With its futuristic costumes and grandly arranged club moves, Mr. Keigwin's "Megalopolis" should bring down the house. That's what happened when it was first performed, by Juilliard students, in 2009. Ideally the musical alternation between minimal Steve Reich (more marimba) and burn-up-the-dance-floor M.I.A. should say something like "We can ride both of these waves." Here the M.I.A. overpowers the Reich, a lopsidedness that's justified only if the cast goes all out. At the Joyce the music wasn't loud enough, and neither was the dancing. Mr. Keigwin's professional dancers - in all the pieces but most misguidedly in "Megalopolis" - show too much professional restraint, as does their leader. He needs to kick that chair away. Keigwin + Company continues through Sunday at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, Chelsea; (212) 242-0800, joyce.org.