Wednesday night’s New Ballet Choreographers evening at Columbia University’s Miller Theater was something of a family affair. Each of the three featured choreographers is a former or current dancer with either New York City Ballet or American Ballet Theatre. Each was able to recruit a distinguished selection of colleagues to interpret his new premieres. Given the combination of dancers, choreographers, and live musicians, the evening was almost an embarrassment of riches, and indeed proved a notch better than some similar events by emerging choreographers.

Duets by NYCB’s Edwaard Liang opened both halves of the program. First, NYCB’s Maria Kowroski and Albert Evans danced “Softly as I speak” to the droning hive sounds of two movements of a movement from a Philip Glass string quartet. The piece was constructed along planes positioned laterally or perpendicular to the audience, and Mr. Liang successfully reflected in the dancers’ partnering the different intensities of pressure that Mr. Glass applied to his strings.

Tall, loose-limbed Ms. Kowroski negotiated a stage much smaller than those on which she usually performs, and her physical projection was somehow too overpowering for Miller, like a Wagnerian Brünnhilde suddenly plopped into Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte.”

Mr. Liang’s second piece, “Für Alina,” is named for Arvo Pärt’s piano composition, which at times seems to crawl from note to note. Mr. Liang designed his movement compass to be similarly constricted. As the piece began, a diagonal shaft of light revealed Craig Hall and Wendy Whelan: He stood upstage right while she crouched downstage left.The lights went out, and when they came back on a few seconds later, the two had reconfigured themselves, thus establishing a pattern that was repeated for the balance of the duet.Toward the end, Ms. Whelan went limp in Mr. Hall’s arms, before they returned to the same positions in which they began.

During the duet, Ms. Whelan’s role seemed to build on her appearance last spring in Alexei Ratmansky’s “Russian Seasons” at NYCB; she was at times gawky and withdrawn, her feet occasionally in parallel position. Her two portraits of disaffection made me think she should have a go at “Giselle” before it is too late.

Brian Reeder’s “Them” made a sociological statement by contrasting a lone man alongside ever-shifting configurations of an ensemble of three couples. The man was at times integrated, or entirely subsumed by them, but always broke free, remaining autonomous. There were implications of demagoguery: He was ruler or accuser, using an outstretched arm and pointed finger to maintain dominion over his brethren.

“Them” was performed by seven young dancers of ABT’s secondary Studio company, who were all fine, but proved slightly less evolved interpreters than the more experienced performers with whom they shared the evening.Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartet No. 2 provided a tense accompaniment.

Closing the program was Tom Gold’s “Masada,” performed to music by John Zorn from the Masada String Quartet’s “Masada songbook.” At times, the ballet seemed like an audition for Balanchine’s “Bugaku” or Bejart’s “Bhakti,” earlier, more masterful attempts at combining movements of the Near, Middle, and Far East with classical ballet. Nevertheless, these attempts risk condescending to the older, exotic, and alien forms, and Mr. Gold definitely put ironic, even parodistic quotations around the Eastern shimmies and sways that peppered a breathless romp.

“Masada,” in which, á la Balanchine, relays of dancers continually supplant and supplement each other, was buoyed by the vigorous and uninhibited performances by Mr. Gold’s NYCB colleagues.Tiler Peck, Georgina Pazcoguin, Sterling Hyltin, and Ana Sophia Scheller were a fast-congealing and equally fast dispersing chorus line, at times a mock delegation of Furies. Often dancing in unison, each woman’s personality manifested itself distinctly through her unique timing and inflections.

The lead couple was Sean Suozzi and Ashley Bouder. Mr. Suozzi’s role combined explosive streaks across the stage with emotionally recalcitrant stances. He and Ms. Bouder engaged in sometimes confrontational partnering. Ms. Bouder’s role contrasted her customarily speed barrier-breaking tempo with the opportunities that Eastern vocabulary offered to expand her persona via stillness and repose. She accepted them gratefully.

Until September 16 (2960 Broadway at 116th Street, 212-854-7799).