Dance Theatre of Harlem, Sadler's Wells, London

You can have too broad a repertoire. Dance Theatre of Harlem's first programme at Sadler's Wells opens impressively with George Balanchine's Serenade and Frederick Ashton's Thaïs. But then we're confronted with Michael Smuin's A Song for Dead Warriors. This is a multimedia whatsit about the sufferings of the native American, complete with onstage buffalo stampede. Harlem's aims are theatricality and good dancing. You could see both of those things on the first night, but as a whole, it didn't quite gel.

Serenade was the first ballet Balanchine made in America, a lyrical, romantic work set to Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings; the central ballerina seems to face her own death, and to transcend it. But the dancing is bright-edged and bold. In one group, the women sweep across the stage, jumping as lightly as 19th-century sylphs. Those jumps swing in the air like bells, one leg thrown forward or back. It's exhilaratingly sharp and fast.

This ballet needs live music. Here, it has a taped soundtrack that deadens spontaneity. The corps are conscientious about the choreography's thrust hip, off-balance quality - at times, too much so. The principals, at least, are all stronger and freer. There are traces of excessive nobility in the transcendent moments, but the dancers take off in the allegro dancing. Andrea Long, in the heroine's role, has a high, quick jump and moments of terrific attack.

Ashton's Thaïs is an Orientalist vision set to a Massenet interlude; the ballerina floats into her partner's arms, swoons through flowing lifts. Melissa Morrissey is smoothly elegant, but her partner, Kip Sturm, is too inflexible for this dreamy number.

If Serenade is danced with too much nobility, A Song for Dead Warriors is choked with it. The hero and his girl (Duncan Cooper and Kellye A Saunders) are native Americans, dancing wistfully together on the reservation. Then the wicked sheriff, with Stetson hat and John Wayne stance, catches sight of her. She is raped and murdered. Her boyfriend despairs, taking to drink and billiards. At last, he regains the spirit of his ancestors (this is where the buffalo come in) and seeks vengeance.

Smuin's ballet is an earnest dud, lacking nuance. Most of the story is told via film projections and movie-soundtrack music. In between the multimedia effects, it's danced full out. The company has a lot of good men, and pushes them on as ancestral chiefs.

Even the traditional cost-umes don't slow them down: they jump and turn cartwheels, feather headdresses and all. It's dreadful choreography, but bravura dancing.

To 10 April (0870 737 7737), then touring (www.worldwidedanceuk.com)