Decker troupe steams up the windows

If lap dancing were an art form, Joseph Allen Decker might well be its Goya; the guy has major heat. His jazz choreography, however, is another matter. In a program titled “A Night of Sin,” his locally based Joseph Allen Decker Dance Company, along with guest choreographers Murray Phillips and Christine Baltes, offered works ranging from taut to trite at the Ivar Theatre on Saturday.

Decker’s 45-minute premiere, “Precious Things: The Seven Deadly Sins,” featured two dysfunctional families, with Decker, Rochelle Guardado and Amanda Arebalo as “Family A” and Amanda Meyer and Robert Mulrey as “Family B.” Set to rock and pop songs, most of the sections were choreographically interchangeable, with climaxes few and far between.

No matter the segment -- “Greed,” “Pride” or “Sloth,” for example -- the piece was characterized by pouting, pirouetting or pulsating. But the dancers worked it, and “Lust,” set to Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” and featuring Decker (“False Husband”), Guardado (“His Perfect Wife”) and Erin Ann Lamont (“The Other Woman”), lived up to its name. A high-kicking, crotch-grabbing Decker stalked the stage like a bull in briefs, alternately simulating sex with Lamont and clinging to his lovely, albeit unresponsive, spouse.

Decker’s work, although eminently watchable, could benefit from editing, pacing (is there an adagio in the house?) and more meaningful storytelling.

Also on the bill, Phillips’ tango-infused “Cool Deceptions” generated sparks as Mulrey and Omhmar Griffin slithered with eight slinky women. Approaching vacuity, however, was Baltes’ work in progress, “Come to Me,” a tedious exercise in harem-like dancing, and “Syncopated Style,” her stagnant Fosse homage showcasing three gals from Jazz Spectrum Dance Company.

The big sin of the night was squandering opportunity.