SINCE its start in San Fran cisco 16 years ago, the Smuin Ballet has become a regular part of the New York dance scene, paying annual visits to the Joyce Theater, where once again it’s closing the season.

But this year, there’s a sad difference: The troupe’s founder, director and choreographer is no longer with them. In April, during a rehearsal, 68-year-old Michael Smuin suffered a fatal heart attack.

He’d enjoyed a remarkably varied career. A former principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre, for 12 years he was co-director of the San Francisco Ballet, at one point virtually saving it from extinction.

But he also had award-winning careers in cabaret, TV, film – providing choreography for both “The Cotton Club” and “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” – and Broadway.

His company of 16 well-chosen classic dancers reflected that eclecticism, and that often dizzying versatility. But Smuin, although first and foremost a man of the theater, remained a strict classicist.

The current Joyce program proves archetypal Smuin, a fitting memorial to his career, and a clear demonstration that the company, under its associate director and Smuin’s chosen heir-apparent, Celia Fushille-Burke, has the will and capacity to continue.

There were two works having their New York premieres – “Schubert Scherzo,” a typically craftsmanlike piece for 10 dancers, set to the scherzo movement of Schubert’s Great C Major Symphony, and “Obrigado, Brazil,” Smuin’s last testament to his love of South American rhythms, an ensemble piece in which Vanessa Thiessen and Ikolo Griffin danced up their own particular storm.

The program – danced throughout with joy – was completed by Smuin’s 1973 balletic gloss on Japanese Noh tragedy, “Shinju,” with the lovers played by Erin Yarborough-Stewart and Aaron Thayer, and the perky Irish step-dance solo “Bells of Dublin” brilliantly performed by Shannon Hurlburt.

SMUIN BALLETJoyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th Street; (212) 242-0800. Through Saturday.