Karina Gonzalez and Connor Walsh in Jorma Elo’s <em>One/end/One</em>

In its first tour to New York since 1985, Houston Ballet’s contemporary repertoire has not hit a great chord with the first critics to weigh in. The company is performing through Sunday at the Joyce Theater.

Leigh Witchel of the New York Post, reviewing the company’s mixed-rep performance Tuesday at the Joyce Theater, noted some fine dancing but said Jorma Elo’s ONE/end/ONE “segues from piquant to pointless.” He found Jiri Kylian’s Falling Angels “less a performance than a feat of endurance.” And he slammed Christopher Bruce’s Hush, which we personally love, as “his stock piece.”

The biggest ouch: ONE/end/ONE and Hush were commissions for Houston Ballet. Thus, Witchel scolds artistic director Stanton Welch: “A leader’s taste should go further.”

New Jersey Star-Ledger reviewer Robert Johnson was kinder. He found the program “mostly terrific” – meaning he liked the Kylian and Bruce dances.

But he calls Elo’s piece “another pretentious flop” and “one of those dispiriting pieces in which ballet conventions merely supply an excuse for the choreographer’s buffoonery.”

Worth noting: New Yorkers are not seeing the full company; this touring program is intentionally lean.