Paul Taylor Dance Company at the Koch Theater Paul Taylor Dance Company Aileen Roehl, left, Heather McGinley and Amy Young in "Company B" at the David H. Koch Theater. Below, scenes from other works in repertory. The gala for the Paul Taylor Dance Company last week featured a film that began by telling the history of American modern dance in three stages: First there was Martha Graham, then there was Merce Cunningham, "then there was Paul Taylor, who let the sun shine in." A burst of applause followed from the audience, and then the film turned its focus to Mr. Taylor's "Aureole," created 50 years ago. But if Mr. Taylor let the sun shine in with "Aureole," he has frequently closed the shutters on it since. It's often the darkness of Mr. Taylor's imagination that singles him out. Witness the 1970 "Big Bertha," which after many years returned this weekend to repertory as part of the Taylor company's season at the David H. Koch Theater. A wholesome American family encounters the doll Big Bertha, a kind of musical slot machine, at the fair, and that malevolent automaton gradually brings their darkest sexual urges to the surface and wrecks their lives. The way Mr. Taylor wipes the smiles off his audience members is masterly. This season features three New York premieres by Mr. Taylor, including "The Uncommitted," one of the deeply unsunny pieces that, when it occurred on Thursday's gala just before the film with its "let the sun shine in" line, should have reminded the audience just how somber this choreographer can be. The other two joined repertory over the weekend. As a conception, "Gossamer Gallants," a comedy, has the bizarrely imaginative multitrack complexity that is Mr. Taylor's most remarkable characteristic. Set to dance music from Smetana's opera "The Bartered Bride," it disregards all the Slavonic-folk character and instead finds a busy-buzzy quality to the music; the piece is about male and female insects, and odder yet, its style is that of a cartoon. Santo Loquasto's vividly architectural-caricature set is a bird's-eye view (or insect's) of a citadel where the towers, courtyard and other features strike some observers as thoroughly sexual. The male insects, dressed like bluebottle flies, get excited because they think it is mating season; but the females, in tight bright green with antennas, are deadlier and more aggressive, and the men soon take a licking. I wish I could have enjoyed this silly romp, but Smetana's music has an inventive power that soon makes Mr. Taylor's giggly, fun-poking treatment of heterosexual and insectile antics seem facile. Still, "Gossamer Gallants" is a shaped and finished piece. "House of Joy," however, gives the opposite impression: the curtain comes down just as you think the main story is about to begin and after only a few isolated and unimportant dance phrases have occurred. The title is an ironic appellation for a brothel; the music is sleazy jazz by Mr. Taylor's former music director, Donald York; most of the action is pantomime. Of the five "shady ladies" (Mr. Taylor's title), one is played by a tall, broad man (Jeffrey Smith) wearing a midi-length dress; one of the clients is played by a woman (Parisa Khobdeh) in butch male attire. Another of the ladies (Jamie Rae Walker) wears a bikini that displays a swollen belly. The most innocent - and impecunious - of the clients (Michael Novak) has just been beaten up by the procurers when the curtain falls. Some of Mr. Taylor's treatment of people here, prostitutes especially, is too stereotypical; it's odd when as subtle an artist as this doesn't choose to go deeper. But plenty of "House of Joy" would seem interesting, even remarkable, if only it led somewhere. Several individual performances are superb; Robert Kleinendorst is unrecognizable as a bent-over old man. The leisurely pace at which Mr. Taylor tells his tale prompts you to expect much more: "House of Joy" is less than half-baked.