Dance Theatre of Harlem, Sadler's Wells Theatre, London

The smack of firm direction

After a 14-year absence from London, Dance Theatre of Harlem makes a welcome return. This is a company of widely differing individuals, but also one of fierce discipline. Clarity of shape and unity of ensemble matter hugely. When the company's founder, Arthur Mitchell, arrived on stage for the final bows, the assembled dancers seemed to snap into line with extra alertness, forming taut, serried lines of respectful uniformity.

As a principal dancer in Balanchine's New York City Ballet, Arthur Mitchell was the first African-American to find prominence in a leading classical company. So it is unsurprising that DTH's first programme in London should pay homage to Balanchinian classicism. Before "Mr Mitchell" (as he is reverentially known) made ballet relevant to the black community, "Mr B" had transformed ballet into an American art, with all the lean speed and easy modernity of a confident, youthful nation. New Bach by the company's Robert Garland continues in that spirit. Joyous and engaging, it provides an irresistible opener, its dancers riding on the crest of a Bach violin concerto with blithe continuum and buoyant attack. Tai Jimenez and Eric Underwood are the couple leading the dancing into its adeptly organised patterns. With music played live – our Royal Ballet Sinfonia under DTH's Joseph E Fields – New Bach is a perfect title for choreography whose twists and quirks bring a contemporary freshness to Bach as well as to ballet.

I've seen better performances of Balanchine's The Four Temperaments, but Jarina Carvalho and James Washington have a fascinating deliberation as the Third Theme's couple. Andrea Long is suitably edgy as Choleric and, as always, the female battalions are tantalisingly Amazonian. Balanchine's masterpiece, in any case, is virtually dancer-proof. It refers back to the humours of ancient Greek medicine, but it is so modern-looking and -sounding (Hindemith wrote the commissioned score) that it might have been made yesterday, not in the 1940s. Its quotations and thematic layers weave into a stunning choreographic fabric, its graphic invention is so powerful that it punches you in the stomach. Yet for all its complexities, it has a lucidity and rigour that make it practically transparent.

Those last qualities go missing in Dwight Rhoden's Twist, which forms the programme's sagging middle. In attempting to bring ballet even closer to today's iconography, Rhoden opts for a sexy athleticism that is almost a given in this company, long, supple limbs flexing and stretching to extremes. He also borrows many of the tics of staging familiar from William Forsythe's post-modern, post-Balanchinian classicism, such as moments of darkness blotting out dancers. But Rhoden's ideas are too disparate to be interesting – they pull in too many different directions for the piece to gel into any logic. Meanwhile, Antonio Carlos Scott's sound-carpet of orchestral rock is so loudly monotonous that it would batter anything into oblivion – maybe even Balanchine.

To Saturday (020-7863 8000); 12 & 13 Nov at the Lowry, Salford (0161-876 2000)