Before the show begins, Mark Morris takes a bow. He appears from the wings, does an about-face, and struts toward the audience. At the corner of the stage, John Heginbotham stands at a table that is decorated in gaudy Christmas lights. Mr. Morris pours himself a stiff one. This is going to be a long night.

Welcome to “From Old Seville,” a demi-caractere set in a dark and queasy tavern in rural Spain. Mr. Morris plays himself, or rather your idea of him, with a spirit of self-mockery. He fools deliberately with the audience’s expectations of him: about his size, his reputation, about dance in general. In this, his company’s 25th year, he no longer resembles the irreverent son of modern dance. Now, he embraces his role as the goofy uncle of the establishment.

When Lauren Grant enters, she and Mr. Morris strike up their castanets and maneuver in circles under a dusty spotlight to the recorded music of Manuel Requiebros’s “E Esa Mujer.” For an audience accustomed to seeing Mr. Morris in a sarong or kimono, his use of castanets is not particularly surprising. He glorifies his bulk in his forceful stomps. He comfortably sinks into a pattern of movements more behavioral than choreographic.

But “From Old Seville,” which opened the weeklong run of the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, unfortunately, exaggerates many of the flaws in the other works, which include “Somebody’s Coming To See Me Tonight,” “Silhouettes,” “Rhymes of Silver,” and his most recent work, “Rock of Ages.”

“Rock of Ages” succeeded vividly. Constructed to Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in E flat, it transforms the Adagio (titled a “Notturno” by the publishers Diabelli and Co.) into a colorful essay on ordinary movements. Entire phrases evolve out of waving, jogging, intent gazes with outspread arms offstage, even reassuring pats on the back. The duet between Julie Worden and Joe Bowie epitomized the casual fluidity of Morris partnering. A simple theme of arms joined behind the back gives the ensemble work an elegance and contemplativeness. The tableaus, with Katherine McDowell’s purple and royal blue costumes, are simple but painterly. And Peter Beck performed the work with clarity.

“Somebody’s Coming to See Me,” set to a song cycle by the early American folk musician Stephen Foster, was overshadowed by its music. Alternating between night and day, the dance opens with a volley of arms waving from a port of call in “The Hour for Thee and Me.” The somber and poetic “Beautiful Dreamer” passes into a wholesome frolic in the wildflowers in “Linger in Blissful Repose.”

But too often kneeling figures simply padded the melodies in the grass, neither dancing nor listening. And the warmth of tenor Gregory Davidson and alto Meg Bragle were certainly worth listening to. The nightingale duet in “Wilt Thou Be Gone, Love?” shared a rare characterization the rest of the work lacked. One particular combination – a sledding backward and then gossamer push off the supporting shoulders – was striking at first, but lost resonance as it repeated at regular intervals. A broken record? Not necessarily, but it is one of Mr. Morris’s mannerisms.

Julie Worden, an exuberant dancer, joined Ms. Grant in “Silhouettes.” They split between them a pair of pajamas: Ms. Worden wore the top, Ms. Grant the pants. Friskily dashing and leaping with round arms to Richard Cumming’s ragtime piano score, they looked like children on a mattress. Julie Worden’s jolly wobble to the finger rolls down the scales added verve and humor, but reduced much of their gestures to pure formality.

Lou Harrison’s specially commissioned score for “Rhymes with Silver,” challenged Mr. Morris’s interpretive skills to powerful ends. Howard Hodgkin’s set design of bright, red-and-green stripes snaked across the backdrop. The gamelan percussion gave the ensemble the ritual energy of a festival parade. They moved in unison. Each section introduced its own physical themes: sorting through kernels in the palm of your hand, propelling slowly across the stage, a square arabesque that looked like a hieroglyphic. Bradon McDonald captured the demonic pace of “In Honor of Prince Kantemir.”

Mr. Morris is often praised for his musicality, but his choreography felt especially tame in these works. The ensembles did not obey the music as much as count the time like a metronome. The phrases, often appropriated from ordinary gestures, were drained of expressive power by repetition and predictable combinations. Each dancer dipped and signaled like a figure in a music box. Mannerisms predominated in the canon patterns; the themes-and-variations structure appears to be irresistible.

The program will be performed again April 21-23 at 7:30 p.m. at BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton Street, between Ashland Place and Rockwell Place, 718-636-4100).