The music softens. For a moment, just before the audience erupts into applause, it’s silent in the Joyce Theater. All that’s left to take in is the soft tap of pointe shoes leaving the stage, the breath that escapes from the dancer’s sternum, and the red hue left by lights and by passion.
Complexions Contemporary Ballet returned to Manhattan’s Joyce Theater from November 18th to 30th, 2025, celebrating their 31st season, pushing the boundaries of traditional ballet. Founded in 1994 by Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, the company was born with a vision to redefine what dance looks like through a groundbreaking mix of methods, styles, and cultures.
Both Co-founders have a deep history not only in ballet technique but also in advocating for diversity and inclusivity in the dance world. Richardson was the first African American principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre, and Rhoden was a principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a company founded on the promotion of inclusivity in dance. Together, their backgrounds inform a repertory that honors classical rigor while actively resisting exclusionary traditions, positioning Complexions as both a technical powerhouse and a cultural statement.
In their two week residency at The Joyce, Complexions brought with them three different programs with three world premieres: Imagine Joy, choreographed by Dwight Rhoden to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings; Young Lovers by debuting choreographer Houston Thomas, to the music of Jeff Buckley, Tarika Blue, and MAW India; and I Got U by Co-Associate Artistic Director Joe González to the sound of Opstad, Aiello, and Blumberg. The variety across programs underscored the company’s range – not only stylistically, but emotionally – moving seamlessly between intimacy, abstraction, and collective power.
During my long-anticipated trip to The Joyce, on November 22’s brisk evening, I was lucky enough to see Program A, which featured Imagine Joy and Young Lovers in addition to Honestly, a New York premiere, and Midnight Riff, a company premiere.
Imagine Joy was a beautiful beginning to the program. The piece was performed by the entire company, in beautiful, shimmering costumes designed by Christine Darch. The lighting, designed by Michael Korsach, Complexions’ resident lighting designer, highlighted the purple undertones of the seemingly nude costumes, revealing the vulnerability and depth depicted in the piece. In addition to Samuel Barder’s Adagio for Strings, Beethoven played heavenly in the background as dancers leaped into each other’s arms, struggled to be released, and were finally let go – a physical manifestation of grief, connection, and surrender unfolding across the stage.
Complexions pushes boundaries not only in movement quality and race, but also in gender, as partner work in Imagine Joy and the subsequent dances strays beyond the convention of a man lifting a woman or of a man being taller and more muscular than his female partner. Complexion‘s choreography has men lifting one another, and one of my favorite dancers of all time, Jillian Davis, asserting her dominance and poise over the men surrounding her. Her toned yet lengthy limbs speak for themselves, and her confidence is one never questioned as soon as she enters the grand stage. Her presence challenges traditional hierarchies of power in ballet – her length, musculature, and command making her impossible to frame as delicate or secondary.
After the final bow of Imagine Joy, the dancers walked off stage, leaving one soloist, Vincenzo Di Primo, to perform his solo Honestly. The only solo of the show was beautifully choreographed by Dwight Rhoden to Donny Hathaway’s majestic vocals in For All We Know. I adore this song for its raw vocals and gut-wrenching lyrics, and Di Primo embodied every emotion that rushes through one’s head in his captivating performance.
“So love me, love me tonight / Tomorrow was made for some / Tomorrow may never come / For all we know,” Hathaway sings. These lyrics are followed by a beautiful instrumental interlude where Di Primo used his flexibility, his control, and his strength not only to impress the audience but also to create a floating sensation as he leaped through the air, and a feeling of mental chaos and instability as he turned ten times on high relevé.
Young Lovers followed the majestic solo, the dancers stepping onstage in captivating red costumes. With music by Jeff Buckly, Tarika Blue, and MAW echoing intensity and passion throughout the theater, Guest Choreographer Houston Thomas explored a different side of love with this world premiere. A side of love that is sharp, dynamic, and full of life.
The program closed with Midnight Riff, a piece choreographed by Rhoden as a tribute to legendary jazz vocalists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and Billie Holiday. The choreography pulsed with musicality, embodying the improvisational spirit of jazz while maintaining the technical precision that defines Complexions’ style. Rather than imitating these artists, the piece absorbed their essence of resilience, individuality, and emotional honesty into the dancers’ bodies.
This last piece felt especially meaningful to watch in New York City, only a few miles down from Harlem, where many of these jazz artists rose to fame and touched the hearts of millions with their music. Will Grunden ’26 came with me to the show and told me, as we were walking out, “Even without being able to appreciate the technique of dance like you can, the energy and enthusiasm of the last one felt truly unmatched and very captivating.”
Underlying the entire evening was the NIQUE technique, patented by Rhoden and Richardson, which promotes a full-body approach to training that emphasizes fluidity, strength, and placement.
Two summers ago, during a summer intensive for Complexions at the USC Kaufman School of Dance, I trained in NIQUE, working with company members including Jillian Davis and Dwight Rhoden. While ballet isn’t typically my strength or favorite style of dance, Roden’s two-hour ballet class still resonates as transformative, as I realized that ballet doesn’t have to follow the same structure that has been taught somewhat monotonously for hundreds of years. Rhoden gave us the same combinations that he might give a company class, quick in teaching the combos but incredibly intentional in pointing out exactly what he wanted from each movement, and highlighting different textures that could be added in various places
NIQUE is not just a technique but a philosophy — one that prioritizes adaptability, breath, and intention over rigid form. It is this philosophy that allows the company to move so seamlessly between styles and emotional registers, and what continues to make Complexions feel not only relevant, but necessary.
Leaving The Joyce that night, I kept thinking about how rare it is to watch a company that feels both technically uncompromising and emotionally open. Complexions doesn’t ask its audience to understand ballet in a particular way; it asks them to feel it. Watching the company perform after having trained in NIQUE myself deepened that understanding. I recognized the attention to breath, the grounded strength, the permission to soften and expand without sacrificing control.
What stood out most was not any single leap or turn, but the consistency of intention across the evening, the sense that every dancer was fully inhabiting their movement. Complexions’ work resists categorization of technical, racial, and gender norms, not out of novelty, but out of necessity. It reflects a dance world that is evolving, one that values individuality, range, and honesty. In a city that never stops moving, the company’s return to The Joyce felt less like a visit and more like a reaffirmation of where contemporary ballet is headed.
The variety across programs underscored the company’s range – not only stylistically, but emotionally – moving seamlessly between intimacy, abstraction, and collective power.