Doug Elkins and Vicky Shick in Focus Dance at the Joyce Focus Dance Vicky Shick's "Everything You See," above, shared a bill with work by Doug Elkins at the Joyce Theater in an annual showcase. From left, foreground, Marilyn Maywald, Heather Olson and Olsi Gjeci. Each year in January, several of Manhattan's smaller dance spaces present anthologies of work by different choreographers and companies. Out-of-town presenters arrive to shop for items they can show back home, while New York dancegoers can catch up on what they might have missed. At the Joyce Theater - whose weeklong season is called Focus Dance - eight troupes are sharing four programs. Tuesday's opening night was a double bill by the choreographers Vicky Shick and Doug Elkins; the audience abounded with choreographers, presenters and dancers. This anthologizing of contemporary dance continues through this weekend. If you pitch camp at New York Live Arts (whose season is called Live Artery), you can catch pieces by 12 different choreographers or collectives. Such crammed programming doesn't always work out, however. Last year, the Japanese-born duo Eiko and Koma gave a tepid impression in their performance in this sampler context, yet were at their most compelling a week later at the Museum of Modern Art. Each of the finest parts of Ms. Shick's "Everything You See" - new in 2013 and entirely new to me - cast its own spell. But there were gaps between those spells. The piece's time structure meandered, and the accompanying musical collage was inconsequential aural wallpaper. Still, at its best, this piece showed that no choreographer today has a more compelling mastery of the postmodern genre of dance deriving from Trisha Brown, in whose company Ms. Shick performed for six years. This is pedestrian movement turned into casual and lyrical virtuosity. One dancer stands, legs apart, pelvis shifting calmly from side to side, with the torso steadily tilting over sideways in a slow arc as arms blithely pull and push. Another dancer walks while her torso arches and tips; her arms open while her hands clasp the air. The multiple coordination is sensuous; and often there are four or more different solos going on at the same time. In "Scott, Queen of Marys" (1994), Mr. Elkins works as a triple thinker - combining, like a juggler, Scots reels, the vogueing genre of movement derived from hip-hop, and the legend of Mary, Queen of Scots. References to the four Marys who attended the Scottish queen and to Mary's male lovers coexist with references to "Paris Is Burning," the 1990 film about the vogue scene. In December 2012, "Scott" had its Baryshnikov Arts Center audience applauding long after the final bows, and rightly so. At the Joyce on Tuesday, it looked - despite earnest whoops and cheers from a few viewers - diluted and diminished. Why is it packing only a fraction of its former punch? Two of the supporting men looked in worse physical shape. Some sections of movement seem to have been changed altogether. As the Queen of Marys, Javier Ninja still does some breathtaking muscular isolations, but less astoundingly than before. Let's hope that this is just a passing side effect of Focus Dance scheduling. Mr. Elkins's talent should shine brighter.