Alexei Ratmansky's "Souvenir d'un Lieu Cher" AMSTERDAM - Even in plush economic times, a festival of new ballets is a risky undertaking. How to find studio hours for all the dancers and choreographers? How to get a collection of new pieces working technically - lighting, décor, staging - at the same time? And then the crucial issue: Will the works be any good? Times are not plush, and the European arts world has withstood brutal budget cuts over the last 18 months. But a festival of new ballets - no fewer than nine - called "Present/s" is nonetheless what Ted Brandsen, the artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet, planned to celebrate the company's 50th-anniversary season. Mr. Brandsen contributed a ballet of his own and mustered an impressive list of participants, including Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei Ratmansky, Hans van Manen and David Dawson, as well as Kryzsztof Pastor, Paul Lightfoot and Sol León, Ton Simons and a company dancer, Juanjo Arqués. Only two (perhaps three) of these pieces are likely to live beyond Dutch National's brief season, which ended on Saturday, but that's probably a higher-than-average new-ballet success rate. Of New York City Ballet's first Diamond Project, created in 1992 to generate new work, for instance, just one of the 11 ballets, William Forsythe's "Herman Schmerman," is still performed. And one point that "Present/s" made clear was that Mr. Forsythe's style and aesthetic dominate a new generation of choreographers, much as Balanchine dominated a previous one. The other overriding impression to emerge from "Present/s" (isn't deconstructive wordplay passé?), seen at the Het Musiekteater, was that ballet is in a generally bad mood. With the exception of Mr. Ratmansky's "Souvenir d'un Lieu Cher," set to Tchaikovsky's composition for piano and violin of the same name, and Mr. Brandsen's perky "Raï" ("Rubies" meets "Glass Pieces"), no one seemed to be having any fun whatsoever. Steps were wrenched from twisting, angling bodies in Mr. Arqués's "Consequence" and Mr. Simons's "Nature of Difference"; anguish, angst and hyperactive neurosis predominated in Mr. Lightfoot and Ms. León's "Short Time Together"; dancers ducked, twisted and tangled antagonistically in Mr. Pastor's "Chapters"; an apocalyptic world of smoke and fire permeated Mr. Dawson's "Day 4." Perhaps it's a collective unconscious response to the shock of the European economic crisis. Even Mr. Wheeldon's "Duet," set to the adagio assai from Ravel's "Piano Concerto in G Major," with its romantic aesthetic, had a prevailing air of melancholy, as its titular couple (Anu Viheriäranta and Jozef Varga, both impeccable) swooped and draped, displaying long, beautiful lines and Mr. Wheeldon's characteristically fluid, inventive partnering. All that languid prettiness alongside the almost painfully lovely Ravel piano concerto is slightly cloying, despite Mr. Wheeldon's skill; you can't help feeling that he could put this kind of thing together in his sleep. "Duet" was nonetheless the best piece on the first night. "Present/s 1" also featured Mr. van Manen's "Variations for Two Couples," a puzzlingly incoherent work with occasionally striking moments that somehow segued from moody, modernist deliberation - all flexed feet and carefully manipulated partnering accompanied by Britten's "String Quartet in F major" - to stony-faced quasi-tango, set to Astor Piazzolla. Things improved on Saturday in "Present/s 2," with Mr. Ratmansky's "Souvenir" showing his brilliance at evoking narrative associations in subtle, ambiguous ways. The quartet begins with two identically dressed couples (Anna Tsygankova and Megan Zimny Gray in slim, greenish-black dresses, Mr. Varga and Artur Shesterikov in dark tights and shiny tops) moving in identical pas de deux. Then one pair stops and watches the other. Are they different incarnations of the same couple, remembering the past? Hoping for the future? Grieving for something or someone? Mr. Ratmansky sustains the ambiguity throughout a flowing, endlessly inventive first section that occasionally recalls Jerome Robbins's "In the Night" in its presentation of different forms of love and relationships. In the brighter, faster second section, a delectably counterpointed, folk- dance-inflected duo for the men and a bravura finish for all four provide a surprising, but somehow inevitable conclusion. It might be showing us the couples" happier past. Or perhaps they are simply dancing. "Souvenir" and perhaps "Duet" seem likely to endure. And then there was the revelation of talent that you always hope for on a program like this. Mr. Dawson, a British choreographer who was at the Royal Ballet School with Mr. Wheeldon and danced with Mr. Forsythe's company, should be better known than he is. "Day 4," a piece for seven dancers (all marvelous) set to a score by Greg Haines, shows his compositional skill and invention; the way he has absorbed Mr. Forsythe's influence and transformed it into something of his own. The work is dark, both literally and metaphorically, but also exquisitely, wrenchingly, beautiful; a world of its own that draws you ineluctably within.