At Paul Taylor Dance Company, Lauren Lovette's Premiere Opens Strong

The Paul Taylor Dance Company opened its fall season at Lincoln Center with two premieres by its resident choreographers, Lauren Lovette and Robert Battle — and The New York Times's dance critic Gia Kourlas judged that, as usual, "Taylor's works flattened them to bits."

The verdict came after the first three nights of the season at the David H. Koch Theater. Artistic director Michael Novak set the stakes in a curtain speech on opening night, telling the crowd that he has been drawn, of late, to dances that feel urgent, dances "that need to be seen now."

Kourlas wrote that, to varying degrees, the company's two resident choreographers "aren't up to that difficult task."

A third new work complicates the picture. The well-regarded contemporary choreographer Pam Tanowitz brings a premiere to New York this weekend, and its reception may test whether the problem is the choreographers or the programming frame around them.

What works in '30 Incoming'?

Lauren Lovette, whom Kourlas described as "a choreographer with a robust imagination and the gumption to take chances," fares better of the two. Her new work, "30 Incoming," had its performance Thursday at the David H. Koch Theater, set to songs by the American-Dutch indie rock band the Books.

The opening was, in the critic's word, immediately arresting. Elizabeth Chapa, bathed in a spotlight, sat on the floor as the white ruffles of her skirt spread around her, "making it look like she was sitting in a pool of swans."

The Books were known for experimenting with sounds, including answering machine messages, and Lovette's score opens with one: "'Hello Mary. Called to, um, wish you good evening.'"

Chapa, showing the angles of her face and shoulders, was like a phantom. Brandon Stirling Baker's lighting gave her lithe figure a painterly glow. Holding the folds of her skirt, she spun. She walked upstage and paused, assertively flicking her shoulders.

Then came the dance's boldest image. Chapa unfastened her hair and raced across a dramatic diagonal, pulling off her skirt — made of Tyvek, a paper-like material — and dipping her head into a seemingly bottomless backbend. Now in a sleek leotard by Mark Eric, who designed the costumes and set, she was a striking windswept sight.

Where does the dance lose its footing?

The remainder did not sustain that level. Kourlas wrote that the rest of the dance "had a hard time finding its footing." Lovette gave her cast moments to shine, but their spins and falls to the floor, "no matter how heartfelt, failed to turn '30 Incoming' into a cohesive world."

What does this change for the company? The review frames a structural question rather than a single-dance judgment: Novak has asked his resident choreographers for urgency, and the season's early evidence suggests the gap between that ambition and the results. Tanowitz's New York premiere this weekend offers the season's next — and perhaps decisive — data point.