What Is Paul Taylor Without Paul Taylor? Full of Bumps.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company is running on the theme of expansion this season. It has a bigger new building in Midtown; its repertory is growing with new dances and there is even a new resident choreographer.

But the programs I saw revealed that this is a time when you need Paul Taylor, who died in 2018, to be alive and choreographing dances that have something to say about the landscape of America — whether dark or satirical, hopeful or passionate. Or a mix. His brilliance was in pointing at the delicate lines between light and dark, in showing how dance marches alongside real life in ways that wake up the body and stir the soul.

The new works presented by the Taylor company during its opening week at Lincoln Center stood out more for their brevity and anodyne ideas than their choreographic force. Along with two premieres by Lauren Lovette, there was a tribute to the former company member Carolyn Adams, by Robert Battle; and a homage to Loïe Fuller, a modern dance pioneer known for her experiments with light and costume, by Jody Sperling.

There was also an announcement at the company’s gala dinner on Wednesday: Battle, the former artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, has been appointed resident choreographer alongside Lovette, who has held the position since 2022.

Battle has long admired Taylor’s dances — he brought his repertoire to the Ailey company — but it’s not so clear how he might expand the Taylor legacy. Battle’s Adams tribute “Dedicated to You,” his first piece for the company, demonstrated that he has an arsenal of Taylor steps in his brain, but is less nimble at making something new out of them.