Looky, which premiered in May at the new Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, was the only piece on the program without live music; it’s set to Kyle Gann’s Studies for Disklavier. The museum theme is played out when the dancers begin to assemble on stage, various clusters pointing up or down or out at invisible objects and animatedly “discussing” them. At the ICA, a piano played by itself, player-piano style, via electronic hook-up. On the Pillow stage, an empty piano bench sat in the upstage right corner, on display in its own spotlight, recorded music playing through the sound system. This depiction of how inert objects come to life is alluded to later in the piece, when a group of the dancers freeze like statues while others wander among them, again looking and pointing. They relax and break poses when left alone, then hustle back when a new group of tourists arrives. Although not much actual dancing goes on — and a lot of it is in the form of little vignettes of balletic steps, as if to remind us that we are watching dance, and that these are capable dancers — all kinds of zaniness ensues, as the museum opening becomes a wild party. People get drunk, pass out, flirt, fight. As a silly, entertaining pièce d’occasion to celebrate the new ICA, Looky makes sense; as a theater piece, it feels like a private joke that the audience is not in on.

Love Song Waltzes, on the other hand, gets richer with every viewing. And, yes, it’s intensely musical: Morris responds lovingly to the Brahms songs without becoming sappy or sentimental. There are intimations of longing, and reaching arms, and unabashed, rhapsodic phrases of waltzing, but no one sheds a tear. The emotions are there, just below the surface, and with the low piqué arabesques and pulsing, skimming triplets, the dance suggests a simmering Victorian drama that never quite spills over. The women step in front of the men, circle one leg around, then fall into their arms and are swept into a gorgeous turn, the arcing shape of their legs doubled into this circle in the air. Men and women alike execute a small tour jeté into their partners’ arms and are lulled into a swoon low to the ground.

As many trios as duets form, perhaps a Morris nod to the time signature, and these groupings too produce memorable images. A dancer runs in from the wings, stands in a downstage corner, tilts into a circling run as a second dancer joins in, then a third, creating a diagonal line that forms and re-forms; this is mirrored in the other downstage corner by another trio, and the motif continues to repeat, and to overlap. For the next-to-last song (“Do not stray, dear love”), a large circle forms around one member of the group — visibly wounded, or perhaps ignored, by love’s slings and arrows — who keeps seeking to escape. One by one the group members gently capture and cradle him, and eventually he’s calmed. Nonetheless, Love Song Waltzes ends with the man walking off a darkening stage, alone. I love Morris for avoiding the Hollywood ending.