In 1974, Alvin Ailey assembled a junior company to give him some dancers to work with when his main company was otherwise occupied. But during the ensuing three decades, the troupe’s director, Sylvia Waters, has turned Ailey II into much more than a farm team. Today, Ms. Waters leads a polished, accomplished touring company that plays a key role in Ailey’s mission of bringing popular dance to the widest possible audience.

On Wednesday night, the Ailey II dancers took the stage at the Joyce’s ongoing 1-2-3 Festival, which alternates nights among the junior companies of Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, and American Ballet Theatre. The bill was stocked with five Ailey excerpts, two recent works, a dozen dancers, and two intermissions. First up was “Ailey Suite,” a greatest-hits medley of excerpts from small-group and solo pieces.

It was a striking beginning. As a train whistle blew, a young, muscular man slunk across the stage, very deliberately knotting a kerchief around his neck. It was a section from “Blues Suite,” Ailey’s 1958 classic drawn from boyhood memories of seedy Texas bars. To the sounds of train whistles and Brother John Sellers’s “Mean Ol’ Frisco,” five boys dressed in kerchiefs, tank tops, and belted slacks strutted about and swiveled their hips in eyecatching unison, curling their fists to show off their ripped arms. Then, suddenly, they exploded into the air in big, defiant leaps.

The five dancers’ spot-on interpretation recalled Ailey’s directive that “Blues Suite” should be “tight like a knot” and “full of anger.” The trio of women who followed in “House of the Rising Sun”summoned a similar mood: aggression in the midst of decay. Each woman had her own vocabulary for it – a crouched, crab-like spin, a leg jabbing frantically at the air, a slow, unsupported developpe.

From here “Ailey Suite” went to a lush, lyrical solo from “The Lark Ascending” (1972), admirably danced by Alia Crutcher. Her demure, downcast eyes and gentle smile contrasted prettily with her wide-flung arms, which seemed to be trying to embrace the whole world.

Then out came James Pierce III in red tights and a headdress, dancing a primitive solo from 1973’s “Hidden Rites” as if it were pouring out of him. The solo was old-fashioned, a kind of bare-chested native rite driven by drumbeats.But the magnetic Mr.Pierce had full command of every nuance – the majesty, the slinky hips, the boneshaking rhythms, the wily alertness.

From this point “Ailey Suite” dropped off in intensity, though the level of dancing remained high. A junior company inevitably suffers by comparison with its big siblings – especially, when those siblings are among New York’s finest dancers – but the Ailey II dancers were technically strong, if not always as impeccably precise as the main company.

Most impressive, perhaps, was the young dancers’ talent for characterization. Though they occasionally gave in to the temptation to over-perform, these dancers capably suggested not only emotions and characters, but shades of emotion and character, while always working in a theatrical vein.

This talent was put to good use in the ensemble’s rendition of “Bitter Suite,” created specifically for the company by Scott Rink in 2005. It would be hard to imagine a more self-consciously pop premise than that of the piece, a series of vignettes about couples on the verge of breaking up. The music – themes from James Bond movies, remixed and performed by the jazz group Sex Mob – was clearly over-the-top. But while “Bitter Suite” had plenty of vamping, it also had a winning sense of humor.

The piece began on a dim, shadowy stage, with a series of couples in tuxedos and elegant (if knee-skimming) evening gowns. Then, all of a sudden, they were locked in combat. One woman grabbed her man’s legs and he wrestled her to the ground; another waggled a finger in her man’s face – and the audience laughed. The rather elegant vignettes were interrupted by a big refrain, which brought on a unison section in which the four men picked up their respective women, heaved them up over their shoulders, and carried them offstage. They came back, of course, and the women got their revenge.

Mr. Rink, to his credit, created interesting variations on his theme, giving the rebuffs a slinky, sexual inflection and milking the battle-of-the-sexes humor.The first section ends with a man gripping a woman’s wrists, her foot about to step on his face. Then came four solos for four men, each sweeping grandly across the wide horizontal space. It was the kind of number that is obviously fun to dance, and fun to watch.

By the time Mr. Rink got to the female solos, with the other three shimmying in the background like backup singers, he had won me over with his mix of sultry elegance and good-natured camp. If only he hadn’t succumbed to an unforgivably cute ending.

The program’s final piece, “Nahum the Comforter,” was a 2005 commission by the up-and-coming choreographer Camille Brown. Though Ms. Brown clearly has a talent for creating vigorous, athletic, original movement, “Nahum” was crowded with too many ideas. Its stage compositions were so cluttered that I didn’t know where to look. The monotonous and repetitive misery of the dancers clutching their heads and jerking their torsos ultimately had a numbing effect.

But Ms. Brown will be back, and with stronger work. Like the dancers of Ailey II, she is young, energetic, vital, and talented.

Until May 3 (Joyce Theater, 212-242-0800).