American Ballet Theater opened its fall season at Lincoln Center with premieres by Gemma Bond and Kyle Abraham in his most accomplished ballet yet.

For ballet to grow, it has to stretch, so there's hope when two new ballets couldn't be less alike. On Wednesday at Lincoln Center, American Ballet Theater began its fall season with premieres by Gemma Bond, a former company member, and Kyle Abraham, a contemporary choreographer. This was Abraham's first commission for Ballet Theater, and it was a triumph.

The program, however, opened on a tepid note with Bond's "La Boutique," a ballet for 26 dancers set to music from "La Boutique Fantasque," as arranged and orchestrated by Respighi, after Rossini. In 1919, Léonide Massine created a one-act ballet to this music about a toy shop that came to life; Bond has made a plotless ballet with tutus and an emphasis on elegant classical technique. Bond's low arabesques are pretty, the mood is pleasant. If only this ballet would move. The dancers acted as if the stage were small.

"La Boutique" opens with three couples, with the central pair of Devon Teuscher and Aran Bell, guiding the gentle steps that prize a certain delicacy and restraint. Teuscher, despite a fall in her first solo, was in statuesque ballerina mode. It would have been hard, if you'd never seen her before, to understand what makes her dancing so special, the way her power mingles with unpretentious innocence.

Bond, clearly guided by structure, sweeps the dancers off and on the stage in lines that start to land in recital territory as the ballet goes on. At times, group choreography seemed unfinished at the edges. Clearly Bond is invested in épaulement and reacted accordingly, with careful attention placed on the angles of the shoulders, the arms. But repeated movements kept cropping up: arms held low in first position that jutted open in quick spurts; arms raised like goal posts; and, most ubiquitous, a single arm swooping overhead to a high fifth, which looked more pasted on the body than initiated from the back.

Teuscher and Bell possessed a majestic air, while Skylar Brandt and Carlos Gonzalez, less self-conscious, let more brightness in. Sunmi Park, the only dancer with a semblance of an inner life, and Cory Stearns had moments when they cut through Bond's generally dry atmosphere to create a bit of mystery -- however disconnected it was from the greater whole.

More attractive costumes might have helped to unify the group, but the awkward color palette of Jean-Marc Puissant's designs -- red, purple, hospital green -- were all the more off-putting under Clifton Taylor's color-saturated lighting. The harmony presented in "La Boutique" was often nebulous; even in the final formation, a scene of dancers spread across the stage, landed not as a solid ending, but as a choreographed snapshot of shapes and line.

Abraham's "Mercurial Son" was a wake-up call. This ballet not only moved, but it was a mood, starting with the music. For two previous works at New York City Ballet, Abraham has brought in unconventional music for uptown crowds -- Kanye West, Jay-Z, James Blake -- but here he pushed further with a score by Grischa Lichtenberger, an electronic music producer and visual artist whose prickly, unpredictable sounds filled the theater with buzzes and clicks, fractured rhythms and whispered squeaks. This will not be loved by all, but I thought it wonderful.

Here, the lighting, glowing yet stark, by Dan Scully, and Karen Young's excellent costumes -- flowing tunics for the men and tight dresses or and variations on unitards for the women -- transformed the stage into a shimmering garden of bodies.

Abraham's dance is a reminder of why having a season away from the Metropolitan Opera House is important for Ballet Theater: Dancers aren't stuck in story ballets. They get to show what they can do, and this spectacularly chosen cast, an ensemble mixing principals, a soloist and members of the corps de ballet, highlighted the specific talents of each: Sierra Armstrong, Carlos Gonzalez, Catherine Hurlin, Joseph Markey, Andrew Robare, Ingrid Thoms and Cassandra Trenary.

Volatile and unpredictable, they moved with extreme precision knowing exactly where they needed to be in space at all times. Abraham pushed himself in his phrase material, giving them complex rhythmic challenges and pushing them to be fierce and unmannered at once. This was key! Trenary was a shape shifter as she whipped her body seemingly out of control and then suddenly exited, walking en pointe into the wings.

Hurlin, with torque and speed, blew across the stage like wind. Gonzalez was ferocious, moving without the sense that he might ever need to stop; and the marvelous team of Armstrong and Thoms rooted the ballet like twin anchors. Robare, wearing a pink tunic that fluttered in the breeze, had many star moments -- his tornado turns were a blur of force and exactitude.

In the end Markey, shimmering in gold, spun to his knee and extended his arms, rippling them before bowing over like a swan and popping back onto his feet. As he stood, he began to walk in a stuttered, slow-motion way -- as if he were the last man on Earth -- and as he continued on, the curtain fell. Of what I've seen of Abraham's ballets, this was his best effort yet: concise, spatially expressive and living up to what it means to be mercurial.

The program, "Innovation Past and Present," also included some imported star quality in the form of Isaac Hernández, a guest artist this season who will become a principal in January. Making his debut in Harald Lander's "Études" (1948), a ponderous homage to classical dance, Hernández had stage presence and, from the way he improved as he went along, an appealing, boyish sort of grit.

Hurlin, returning to the stage in ballerina mode, overdid some turns -- beautiful landings are always better than an extra rotation -- but she was full of her winning, natural zest. And then there was Jake Roxander, who stole the show. His technique is so clean it makes you dizzy. His fifth position is a work of art. Here, in "Études," he brought depth to a role that doesn't really deserve it.

American Ballet Theater

Through Nov. 3 at the David H. Koch Theater in Manhattan; abt.org