The choreographer Christopher Wheeldon founded his transatlantic company, Morphoses, three years ago, with performance bases in both New York and London. Here, Sadler’s Wells is home, and they have just held their third season with two repertoire programmes, including world premieres, other new acquisitions and revivals.

Wheeldon, a dedicated and likeable chap, likes to preface his shows with a cheery and informative pep chat. Some people might find the “spiky” music of Ligeti (a favourite composer of his) difficult. He says: “Don’t be alarmed. It can also be charming.” This year, taking a leaf out of the book of his friends the Ballet Boyz, he includes film vignettes of the company preparing his programmes during an eight-week residency on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s nice to learn about the varied backgrounds of his dancers from around the world; each year, Wheeldon reconvenes his troupe from freelance artistes and guests from international companies. But there is too much of this, and since Wheeldon has an enthusiastic following who would be at both his programmes, they (we) had to sit through a lot twice. By the time we reached his own premiere piece, Rhapsody Fantaisie, late at the end of the second evening, we were somewhat worn out.

Yet this is an impressive work, set to music from Rachmaninov’s Suites for Two Pianos (Cameron Grant and Jonathan Higgins the admirable pianists). The artist Hugo Dalton’s set design includes his “light drawings” — white outlines of bodies projected on a front gauze, through which 12 dancers become visible in bright red costumes (chic dresses for women, harem pants for men) by Francisco Costa, the Calvin Klein designer.

The dances unfold with Wheeldon’s characteristic neoclassical fluency and invention, including a fine succession of varied duets, from romantic to quirky: particularly complex for Wendy Whelan and Andrew Crawford, or curious for Drew Jacoby and the memorably named Rubinald Pronk. The section for all six men is especially brisk and exhilarating; the women’s section is lovely.

Wheeldon also offered two of his earlier successes. Commedia premiered here last year, using Stravinsky’s delightful Pulcinella score — originally commissioned by Diaghilev, so Wheeldon can now link his piece into the current celebrations of the Ballets Russes centenary. The commedia dell’arte element is neatly referenced in the designs, by Isabel and Ruben Toledo, but Wheeldon has dispensed with ostensible narrative. The dances are bright and jaunty, but far and away the best are the frolicsome and mischievous solos and the playfully romantic duet for the Royal Ballet’s Leanne Benjamin and Edward Watson, whose perfor­mances (in the roles they created) are outstanding.

Continuum is a set of miniatures to Ligeti piano pieces and contains some of the choreographer’s most compelling and mysterious inventions, including the pas de deux to the title number (for harpsichord), which is like a confrontation, or a mating ritual, of insects or reptiles. In contrast, a male quartet jumping over each other’s linked hands is captivating in its ingenuity. Of the other works new to Morphoses this year, the Australian choreographer Tim Harbour premiered Leaving Songs, to plaintive music by his compatriot Ross Edwards. Harbour chuntered on in a film interview that his themes were death and rebirth. The result is a largely slow- paced piece, including duets of a certain niceness — but the impression the work leaves is vacuous.

Who can tell why Wheeldon wanted Softly as I Leave You, a duet by the joint choreographers of Nederlands Dans Theater, Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon (who now label themselves Lightfoot Leon), in his repertoire? Jacoby starts off, on a dark stage, thrashing around in an upright box. Stuck in a lift? No, given the title, it must be a coffin. Her subsequent encounter with Pronk is portentous, contorted, angst-ridden. Eventually, he is trapped in the box and she leaves. It’s an unedifying piece, despite the dancers’ commitment.

What made up for these questionable offerings, however, was Bolero, by the much-in-demand Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, created originally in Denmark in 2001. Like me, you may feel you have had your fill of Ravel’s overpopular score, but the orchestra, here under Paul Murphy, gave it a luscious treatment, and Ratmansky has made a fascinating piece. His three couples wear numbers on their chests, like contestants; they pick out their partners. Solos are set against groups; a duet, trios, a ring dance evolve. The pulse of the movement is continuous, building to a crescendo of swirling lifts and a general collapse to the music’s orgasmic climax. Splendid. No sooner had Wheeldon’s troupe winged off to New York for their next performances than the New Yorkers Mark Morris Dance Group breezed into the Wells as part of their UK tour — and they were very welcome back, on glorious form.

On his first of two programmes, Morris gave the UK premiere of Empire Garden (new in August), to Charles Ives’s multireferencing Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano. Elizabeth Kurtzman’s bright-coloured costumes are mostly uniforms, of a bandsman or bellhop style, with sporty variance. The 15 dancers look like treasures out of a child’s toy box. We have intriguing, repeated gestures — as if keeping something at bay. A waggling of hands; the firing of imaginary guns; one dancer mounting others’ backs to deliver a (silent) speech or sermon. Big marching parades develop. Sometimes there is a kaleidoscope of activity, which may still into frozen groupings. There is even an allusion to classical Indian dancing. It is all a remarkable fantasy, a cultural patchwork: tantalising and exhilarating. When we reach the lovely, enigmatic climax, Ives is weaving around the theme of rock of ages.

Earlier works completed this programme. Bedtime, to Schubert songs, has images of sleep and loss in its outer movements, but is all light-hearted and light-footed in the middle. V, to Schumann’s Quintet, Op 44, for piano and strings, is full of wonderful ideas, in which everything sits perfectly on the music. Throughout the programme, the musical and sung performances — like the dancing — are top quality.

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