Mr. Kikta’s music, in seven sections, had largely predictable rhythms; Mr. Walker’s 10 dancers, with end-stopped phrasing, seemed more trapped than liberated by them.

But the body language, far more end-stopped than Mozart’s phraseology, becomes a mere effect — and is then repeated too often.

In these pieces, he shows a tiresome fondness for short-breathed, end-stopped dance phrases that dog the music like a distracting running commentary.