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Robert Shomler / San Jose Ballet

George Balanchine’s “Square Dance” features Ballet San Jose’s Alexsandra Meijer and Anton Pankevitch in the spring series.

Ballet San Jose served up a sampler of ballet’s expressive possibilities in its first of two Spring Repertory programs, which opened Thursday at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. It began with the lyrical grammar of Dennis Nahat’s “Moments,” continued with Donald Mahler’s wistfully poised “Salut d’Amour” and closed with George Balanchine’s “Square Dance,” a kind of sampler of its own that packages up a whirr of classical steps in the gingham-and-jeans trappings of American folk dance.

Deft as some of the solo dancing was – Alexsandra Meijer sparkled the most brightly of all in the Balanchine – it was the ensemble work, the fretwork of inner connections, that carried the evening. Artistic Director Nahat sounded that note from the start, when the curtain rose on “Moments,” set to Mendelssohn’s choice Piano Trio No. 1. Costumed in rich purples and reds against David Guthrie’s handsomely layered abstract backdrop, the troupe was revealed in an organic cluster, pulsing up and down in place. At the end of the last movement, after plenty of eventful if sometimes mechanically contrived gambits, they reconstructed that cluster before advancing downstage, smiling as one, in a line.

The dance and feelings it can evoke flowed most sweetly and successfully in “Salut d’Amour.” Here, in a series of interwoven duets for three couples, Mahler found the balance point between pictorial nostalgia and graceful immediacy. With the men in long white trousers and shirts and the women in soft white dresses festooned with ribbon sashes, an early 20th century pastoral unfolded in its leisurely way to the music of Edward Elgar and Howard Brockway.

Everything the couples did seemed easy and unforced, whether the lovers were posing as if for some sepia-tinted photograph, tapping each other lightly on the shoulder to begin a flirtation or a liquid waltz or showing off in whirling leaps by the men and spacious arabesques by the women. In one particularly touching move, the chaste but earnest partners sat back on their heels face to face, rose to a kneeling position and came together on their feet.

Hao Bo seemed especially attentive to Maria Jacobs-Yu, craning over her protectively and lifting her gently, earning her tender response. Junna Ige and Maykel Solas had a tighter, compressed energy. Catharine Grow and Rudy Candia added a sense of airy calm. The whole thing conveyed a sense of widening realms, both spatial and temporal. In an evening that benefited greatly from live music throughout, violinist Robin Mayforth distinguished herself with her plangent melodies.

“Moments” migrated from the athletic sprawl of the opening to a tentative pas de deux to a fleet scherzo for three dancers and an ensemble closer. Overly busy, with lots of lifts and carries and dancers darting on and offstage in the outer movements, the piece never quite took hold. There were some lovely details. Solas and Karen Gabay’s first touch in the pas de deux came when they were facing in opposite directions, their hands stretched behind their backs to find each other. But “Moments” seemed to labor in place for long stretches.

With its barn-dance atmosphere complete with a caller (Lauren Ingrassia) and a Baroque score of Corelli and Vivaldi, “Square Dance” is a willful collision of styles. Balanchine wisely excised the caller from later versions of this 1957 work. The piece would be wittier and more winning without the intrusive rhythmic lines that rhyme “jetй” and “sashay” and literalize the “lonesome guy (a weak Anton Pankevitch) and gal” (the wonderfully saucy and buoyant Meijer). Still, there was pleasure to be had, especially from the women. Their exuberant entrechats looked as precisely stitched as a fancily embroidered blouse, proudly worn to a square dance on a Saturday night.

Ballet San Jose: Spring Repertory 1. 8 p.m. today, 1:30 p.m. Sun. San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Blvd. $30-$85. (408) 288-2800. www.balletsj.org.

E-mail Steven Winn at datebookletters@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E – 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle