Like the spring breeze wafting through the streets outside Symphony Space, the dance concert presented this weekend by David Parker and the Bang Group was fresh but lightweight. On the diminutive Thalia stage, Mr. Parker – the former tapper turned jovial postmodern choreographer – served up two courses of frothy fun, along with a pair of lesser aperitifs.

Mr. Parker’s tap-inflected dances are witty, clever, and interestingly constructed. There is plenty of wit involved and no malice. Even as he deconstructs Broadway and Hollywood tunes, you can feel Mr. Parker enjoying the fingersnapping beat, the vaudeville roots, and their determined (if false) good cheer.

The evening’s new piece was a sextet called “Backward and in Heels” – a goof on the old saw about Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did, except backward and in heels. The title was ripe for interpretation. My favorite way of interpreting it was that in the piece, the Bang Group’s offbeat dancers did much of what tap dancers do, minus the shoes.

First a girl came out in a pair of pants with long straps attached, and used the straps to whack everything from the boards to her own back. Later, the dancers thumped their limbs and buttocks against the floor in time to a florid version of “Moon River.” For the grand finale, a hoofer came on in a kind of jester’s vest and did a Gene Kelly number without shoes, tapping his heart out.

The beauty of “Backward and in Heels” is that its clever dance elements are matched by ideas. Take the girl with the straps, for instance. As “The Sound of Music” blared and Maria started singing to the Alps, the dancer used her appendages to suggest everyone from the Virgin Mary to Marilyn Monroe. Finally, she looped the straps in a hangman’s noose and yanked.

That this came off as good-humored fun is a testament to its dancer, Emily Tschiffely. Just as good in another role was Nic Petry, who soared through his whiz-bang tap number with contagious joy. It may have been deconstructed Gene Kelly, but it still put a smile on your face.

The Kelly number began with a joke, which was that Doris Day, who was singing “Ready, Willing and Able,” kept messing up the recording. Each time she messed up, the poor hoofer had to start over. It was a good joke, and it gave the number a contemporary edge. But the whole time you felt that he wanted to dance the damn number – which is the feeling I always get from Mr. Parker as a choreographer. The high jinks get in the way of his love for these corny old tap numbers, so finally, he has to let the kids dance.

The other two pieces on the bill, alas, were trifles. A new Kay Cummings performance piece, “Haydn’s Surprising Symphony,”felt like a skit cooked up by bored cousins after dinner. And the brief solo “Show Business” (2004) also stretched its one joke rather thin.

It was a shame to see so little work from the Bang Group’s first 10 years on the bill. In his introduction, Mr. Parker spoke of a year of upcoming performances to celebrate the 10th anniversary, and I look forward to a much fuller evening. With his zaniness, eye for composition, love of percussion, and warped yet warm sense of humor, Mr. Parker is one of the most original downtown choreographers working now.