Andrea Miller's "Sit, Kneel, Stand" at Joyce Theater When Andrea Miller began choreographing her latest dance, "Sit, Kneel, Stand," her point of inspiration was the myth of Sisyphus and his eternal task of rolling a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down. For its premiere at the Joyce Theater on Friday night, what lingered from that initial impulse were the ideas of effort and resilience, both spiritual and physical. Members of Ms. Miller's Gallim Dance compressed or stretched their bodies to extremes, returned to form and started all over again. Presented in conjunction with the Gotham Dance Festival that concluded over the weekend, the production did offer a glimpse into a new direction for Ms. Miller, whose dances, up to this point, have been energetic but unoriginal. They take much from Gaga, a movement practice created by the Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin. There are traces of Gaga in "Sit, Kneel, Stand" but, encouragingly, the performance is more than a Gaga class. Sit, Kneel, Stand Arika Yamada, left, and Jonathan Royse Windham on Friday at the Joyce Theater. Even though Ms. Miller is repeatedly drawn to gimmicks in her new work, there is an early duet for Caroline Fermin and Francesca Romo in which the choreography stays close to the compelling side of quirky: the dancers elongate their limbs to the limit, creating shapes that are elegantly awkward. In later sections this kind of body distortion becomes a comedy act in which one dancer tries to get another to move in a certain manner or direction. Clearly Ms. Miller is hoping for something lighthearted, but the results are juvenile. Soon after the curtain is raised, Ms. Romo announces, "This is how we're going to start the show." Her pinched, high-pitched tone imitates a little girl's voice; even worse is the shrieking that follows. As the word "sit" in the title hints, there are chairs in this work - white ones - that the dancers constantly move around the stage or climb onto. It's not a particularly enlightening use of a familiar dance prop. In one sequence Jonathan Royse Windham tries to guide Arika Yamada - who holds herself in twisted positions while standing on the seats - from one chair to the next. All the while Mr. Windham gasps and whines, mirroring his disjointed, exaggerated speech with jerky movement that could be considered mocking to those with mental disabilities. Angry whimpers follow when Ms. Romo has a challenge of her own: to fit together the bodies of Mario Bermudez Gil and Ms. Yamada. "Lady stop, lady stop," she imploringly tells Ms. Yamada in her little-girl voice. From Ms. Miller this veiled exploration of absurdist behavior is child's play. It's time to show if she is capable of anything more.