Since 2004, the Kirov Ballet has embraced the works of William Forsythe fervently and more than a bit dogmatically. But it was evident on Tuesday night at City Center that four Forsythe ballets on one program is at least one too many.

Mr. Forsythe borrows from doctrinal schools of theatrical deconstruction fomented in the early decades of this century. He deploys them on a torqued grid of extremist takes on Balanchine’s neoclassic vocabulary, and he sets them to soundtrack assemblages that often proceed by fragmented fits and starts. Boundaries and illusionism are assailed.

In the opening work, “Steptext,” the auditorium lights stay on throughout the beginning of the piece and rise again toward its conclusion. The performers onstage see us and we see each other; our spectatorship becomes part of the text. Punctuations are open-ended here. “Steptext” opens without fanfare, as dancer Mikhail Lobukhin walks out and begins some oleaginous stretching. Soon, Diana Vishneva arrives posed downstage left for an aria of bent wrists and rippling, twisted, and entwined arms; her monologue is a preview of the particular semaphoric sign language that “Steptext” employs.

On Tuesday, Ms. Vishneva was more truly Forsythian than she has sometimes been in the past. Not pert and playful, she was instead properly sour, ornery, and distempered. Mr. Forsythe wants his “Steptext” heroine to stay on the razor’s edge. Crucial to “Steptext” (and to most of Mr. Forsythe’s work) is the dancer’s ostensible decision to break up the scripted interaction and go back to being an individual who stretches, rehearses, and talks to other dancers. But breaking character is scripted into the work, of course. Kneading her feet in her moments “at rest,” Ms. Vishneva maintained a starting-block alertness.

There is a great deal of repetition in Mr. Forsythe’s work, deployed as polemical statement in the manner of minimalism. Variety thus is to some degree dependent on the range of physiques and temperaments introduced. In “Steptext,” the stage picture benefited from the contrasting builds of the three tall men surrounding Ms. Vishneva. Whereas Mr. Lobukhin is earthy, Igor Kolb has an ideal classical silhouette, and Alexander Sergeyev is eccentrically elongated.

“Approximate Sonata,” which came after an intermission, was the low point of Tuesday’s program. It’s a tedious piece. Tedium has its own important place in the theater, yet “Approximate Sonata” was like watching paint dry. It seemed in this context to be a rehash of trademark tropes; on a mixed bill with non-Forsythe works, it would appear fresher and work better.

After a pause, there was “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude,” set to the booming final movement of Schubert’s Symphony No. 9. For some reason, Mr. Forysthe had stipulated that the Kirov perform it to a taped performance rather than live music. The dancers were Elena Androsova, Ekaterina Osmolkina, and Olesia Novikova, together with Andrian Fadeyev and Leonid Sarafanov. There is an interesting contrast between the classical elegance of Mr. Fadeyev — pulled this way and that by Mr. Forsythe’s undertow of disequilibrium — and the rubbery rapscallion Mr. Sarafanov, perpetually mobile except for moments when he’s made to sit still and mind his manners.

Tuesday night’s “Vertiginous” suffered from the exclusion of Svetlana Ivanova, who danced Ms. Osmolkina’s role superlatively at the Kirov premiere in March 2004. Ms. Ivanova is in New York with the company, and there is no artistic reason why she is not dancing even one of the three performances. On Tuesday night, Ms. Osmolkina nevertheless danced very well, as did Ms. Novikova and Ms. Androsova, who is mostly cast in coryphée roles and hasn’t danced “Vertiginous” nearly as often as the other two women. But Ms. Ivanova takes the ballet to a different level altogether.

Following another intermission, the program closed with “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated.” Returning to the stage from “Steptext” were Mr. Lobukhin and Mr. Sergeyev. From “Vertiginous,” there was Ms. Novikova. And from “Approximate Sonata,” Anton Pimonov, Elena Sheshina, Yana Selina, and Ekaterina Kondaurova.

Here the dancers had a fine old time roughing up themselves — and each other. At center stage were Victoria Tereshkina and Ms. Kondaurova, who are both very tall and who would appear to have hip joints that allow their legs to rotate 360 degrees. Ms. Tereshkina was vampish and Ms. Kondaurova lissome. Xenia Dubrovina is equally tall and long-limbed, but less exaggerated; her note of chic reticence was welcome amidst all the petulance and provocation. An exemplary approach to Forsythe was also made by Mr. Pimonov, who takes canny measure of the material and delivers it straight without gratuitous thrashing and posturing. His duet with Ms. Selina was a highlight of “Approximate Sonata,” as was his work in “Middle,” which requires him to perform a series of running lifts carrying Ms. Novikova that went like a lightning streak across the stage.