Complexions Contemporary Ballet Review
November 27, 2024 | The Joyce Theater – New York, NY, USA
If you want to impress a Complexions dancer, say the word “NIQUE”. But if you want to dance like one, you must watch them perform first!
The unique dance techNIQUE (or NIQUE), was created by Complexions Contemporary Ballet (CCB)’s cofounders Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, with a goal of infusing the classical and contemporary styles and taking the dancers’ dancing to the next level.
Tonight’s Thanksgiving program is essentially a cornucopia of NIQUE – all four dances are choreographed by Rhoden, all start off in dim black lights, and all marinated in diverse complexities.
Complexions Contemporary Ballet Review
Blood Calls Blood starts off the energetic evening with the dancers’ flexible rubber band-like legs extending to the moon.
The two women, Lucy Stewart (in an orangey striped leotard) and Christian Burse (in a red leotard), and two men (Joe Gonzalez partners Stewart, and Alberto Andrade is paired with Burse), slide into liberating grand pliés, pop off their heels to the beat of Chief Adujah’s music, and crescendo into attitudes that halt in time.
One can never get bored of seeing buttery attitude turns sailing across the stage by this quartet.
They trace slow circular pathways of their personal kinespheres, casting a spell on the audience, taking them on a journey of lyrical flow.
Stewart slices through space with her NIQUE resembling the beauty in rhythmic gymnastics. Instead of using ribbon, clubs, ball or hoop, her prop is her man, Gonzalez.
Later, Burse memorably relevés diagonally with her arms winging back victoriously. I thought I was seeing Simone Biles nailing a landing at the Olympics!
The athleticism of NIQUE continues to pronounce itself when the dancers pulsate to the sound of ocean waves. Now the men catch their girls in six o’clock penchés then ease into coordinated promenades; only seconds later, the women and men take turns bathing in sequential movements.
At one moment, I saw gestures of prayer-hands over deep pliés in second, reminding me to be grateful for what I have.
Then suddenly, Gonzalez breaks out into a solo, his arm reaching up, daringly poised for a balance in arabesque. Although he is boldly muscular, he can easily dance like a feather if need be.
Andrade solos in, and is even more feathery. His extensions scream hyper-mobility, and his fluid arms can be mistaken for a graceful Odette from Kirov’s Swan Lake.
As Blood Calls Blood draws near its end, the dancers repeat more intricate unison phrases (which is heavily utilized in the show), until they all buoyantly join hands and walk upstage with just the right amount of sass.
And they know they nailed it!
The second piece, Deeply, a male solo danced by the charismatic Vincenzo Di Primo to Lucio Dalla’s song titled “Caruso”, reminds me of a man searching for meaning. He motions his NIQUE around the stage as if trying to dance out the letter “S” in the word “soul” but keeps getting stuck.
Di Primo held the audience’s attention throughout the 6-minute solo with his elongated arabesques, jolting contractions, serene pirouettes, a few dramatic head-holds, and even some NIQUE-flavored moonwalk. Perhaps conflicted by hope and despair, his dancing expresses a deep internal struggle, and applause from the audience showers his very being.
Turns out, Deeply is the alternate version of Benny, another solo of the same choreography in the company’s repertoire. The program indicates that the two duets are with:
“…identical choreography composed to two different pieces of music… this exploration is a process-oriented tool that bolsters the concept of movement as language and places the artist in the driver’s seat to interpret the choreography in different ways according to the music.”
We arrive at Bolero (composed by Maurice Ravel), a piece that intensifies like fire.
It's like a collective jam session showing off the company’s untamed spirit.
The piece starts with dancers on the floor, stewing in a hue of ominous red light. The men push themselves up, and the women freeze themselves in contortionistic backbends. A male soloist gets away from the group to dance alone, but is overtaken by the forcefully diverse ensemble.
Bolero illustrates how unisons can hold a lot of power, and when strategically choreographed to and danced by the fierce CCB dancers, it is visually satisfying to watch lines of them unfold.
One particular dancer is impossible to miss, and I’m happy she found her footing at CCB. Jillian Davis, who easily towers over all the men in the company with a height of 6′-2″ (and at least 6’-6″ on pointe), defies all odds in securing herself in a professional ballet company. She is the epitome of NIQUE with incredible lines, flexibility, unique features and edginess.
I cannot take my eyes off of her, not only because of how tall she is, but because I can see how dancing with Complexions is personally empowering for her. Unfortunately, not once did Davis dance a solo in a ballet filled with incredible pas de deux; I see this as a missed choreographic opportunity where she could have fully stood out and filled the stage with her presence.
More of Bolero fires up with dancers snaking through space, doing upside down scissor lifts, going through canons of splits on the floor, and executing several chaotic but purposeful transitions. Furthermore, the dancers carve out lines in ambiguous formations, a few did impressive leg-hold turns, and the company even motions some squats, joggings, and boxings at center stage.
It is everything and anything you ever wanted to see within a contemporary ballet.
Bolero is certainly the most interesting dance of the night, using a piece of music which has been choreographed to by so many other creators prior (Béjart, Nijinska, etc.). According to the handbill, Bolero is performed for the loving memory of the late Judith Jamison of Alvin Ailey, who taught CCB
“the importance of emphasizing the collective and the power of a common purpose.”
The evening concludes with For Crying Out Loud, musically inspired by Bono of U2. There are six sections:
- “Where The Streets Have No Name”
- “I Will Follow”
- “Every Breaking Wave”
- “Vertigo”
- “With Or Without You”
- “Pride”
I enjoyed “Every Breaking Wave” the most, the ending hitting a nerve in my heart; a pas de deux wraps up their duet when she goes on pointe as her partner turns her off-center around and around going faster and faster infinitely as the light dim.
Also of note was April Watson who stole the show in “With Or Without You”, fading in with her sexy walks on pointe in front of the wings, catching the eye of a cocky Gonzalez who had returned to the stage in “Vertigo”. Their intimacy is displayed for the public through the sizzling pas that continues with veer off balances and lifts, he turning her in multiple pirouettes and giving a flirty booty bump.
A frustrating side note:
I noticed that only the pictures of the company’s leaders were featured in the handbill. The full company bios and headshots are replaced by a QR code and upon scanning it, only six additional pages were in the digital literature. The stingy tree-saving idea (really saving three pages if double-sided) is a huge turnoff. Not being able to readily access the dancers’ backgrounds while they celebrate such a momentous three decades is poor planning, especially given that they are a small-sized dance company.
Apart from a few minor and marketing critiques, tonight’s Complexions Contemporary Ballet’s program was quite a repertory feast, surely an applause-generating Thanksgiving performance for an extra gracious New York audience in the city that never sleeps.
Featured Photo of Complexions Contemporary Ballet‘s Christian Burse in Dwight Rhoden’s Blood Calls Blood. Photo by Taylor Craft.
