Complexions Contemporary Ballet bringing message of unity, passion to Hancher in Iowa City

Complexions Contemporary Ballet has brought its message of unity to stages in New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Next up, the company’s Hancher debut in Iowa City on Nov. 1. Then it’s back to New York and on to Detroit before the holidays, followed by stops in Chicago and the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C., among other major sites in the new year.

So how does Iowa City fit in with the big cities?

“Complexions is that company that really wants to go everywhere, wants to bring our brand, our message, who we are,” cofounder, co-artistic director and principal choreographer Dwight Rhoden, 61, told The Gazette by phone from his Los Angeles home. He divides his time between the West Coast and New York City, where the company has been based since he established it with fellow dancer Desmond Richardson in 1994.

If you go

What: Complexions Contemporary Ballet: “Star Dust: From Bach to Bowie”

Where: Hancher Auditorium, 141 E. Park Rd., Iowa City

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1, 2024

Tickets: $35 to $55 adults, $10 students and youths; Hancher Box Office, 1- (800) HANCHER, (319) 335-1160 or hbotix.hancher.uiowa.edu/Online/

Company’s website: complexionsdance.org/

“We will go everywhere, because we think that what we have to offer, and what we have to say, and the beauty of our dancers — we want to share them. The idea of Complexions is to share our work with the world, and so Iowa City fits, right?”

The company also embraces a world of styles, leaping way beyond tutus and toe shoes.

“Contemporary ballet has sort of a wide array of qualities and descriptions,” Rhoden said. “However, under Complexions’ banner, contemporary ballet is very much a classically-based movement style that is a real fusion of contemporary movement that has influences of everything from modern dance to hip-hop to jazz. It has all of those elements, and in many ways, it bridges.

“It’s a fusion, but you will always see the classicism underneath it, meaning you’ll see the line and the shapes that might be particularly known as classical, but they’re taken and almost turned on their head a little bit, and folded and changed,” he explained.

“There’s a way that you take and you fuse those two different types and textures of movement and put them under one roof if you want to make contemporary ballet. So it’s very much a bridge between classical dance and contemporary movement.”

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It’s also a very physical, athletic company.

“The dancers are really big, passionate movers, and you really see that,” Rhoden said. “There’s sort of a signature style. There’s an intensity to the work, and it’s all led by passion. So it’s not a stuffy ballet performance on any level.

“It’s an evening that is, in my opinion, very engaging, even for someone who is not necessarily a person who sees dance all the time. There is an entertainment value to it, but Complexions (dancers are) known for their intensity, their physicality and their passion.”

It’s a message that’s been taken to nearly all continents, showing the unity of dance styles and multicultural elements across borders, removing boundaries for dancers and viewers alike.

“We’re sending that message of unity by having all those different types of bodies, backgrounds, races, and it extends into the repertory with music, movement, styles — all of it,” Rhoden said. “We’ve always been that way from Day One. Part of our message as a company is complete and utter unity and bringing people together to share their different stories and loving the journey. …

“Before it became popular to be inclusive and diverse, that’s just the way that Desmond and I saw things.”

In Iowa City

The Hancher production will open and close with Rhoden’s pieces “Bach 25” and “Star Dust: A Ballet Tribute to David Bowie,” with several other works in between.

He choreographed “Bach 25” for the company’s 25th anniversary season, and is bringing an excerpt of the neoclassical work to the University of Iowa venue.

“ ‘Bach 25’ was a kind of a passion project, in a way,” he said. “It was the 25th anniversary. I wanted to do a work to a classical piece of music, because I felt like the repertory needed it, and Bach is my favorite composer. I have so many works to his music, and so I made this (piece). It's a full-company shindig out there. It’s a full company work, and it’s dynamic.”

The first half also features “Choke,” a short duet with two women, set to the “Summer” movement of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” as well as “Gone,” a piece for three men, performed to the work song “Another Man Done Gone,” sung by Odetta; “Pocket Symphony,” set to the music of Sven Helbig; and an “Ave Maria” pas de deux, one of Rhoden’s signature pieces.

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The second half is given over to “Star Dust,” a work in motion even before Bowie’s death in 2016.

After the rock icon died, “It became even more important to me that we get this done,” Rhoden said. “So that piece is also a piece that really pays tribute to his incredible catalog. Of course, we’re only doing it in one act, so we couldn’t get to all of the amazing hits that he had.

“He was such a chameleon and such an interesting character (who) was also so ahead of his time in terms of his music. He also was very prolific in the way that he touched on so many different genres of music — everything from punk rock, R&B, jazz, you name it, he had taken and dipped his toes in the pool,” Rhoden said.

“He was such a such an iconic performer, and much of it has to do with loving his music, loving the messages in his music, loving the reinvention of his image. Artistically, he just kept evolving. You never knew where he would be when he came out with his next album or hit.”

That made the notion of setting Bowie’s music to dance “very attractive,” Rhoden said, adding that the nine-movement work, from “Ziggy Stardust” in 1972 to “Lazarus” in 2026, has “been a big hit. It’s something that has been toured for a number of years, and people really request it quite a bit. It’s a very theatrical production — lots of dancing, of course, but there’s also acting and lip syncing, and it’s very involved that way.”

In the beginning

Since Rhoden and Richardson both danced with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater before leaving 30 years ago, it’s possible they performed in the former Hancher Auditorium, which was demolished and replaced after the 2008 flood. But since their artistry has taken them around the world, it’s hard to remember, Rhoden said.

However, a search of Gazette archives finds that “Growth,” one of Rhoden’s works, was performed by guest artist Sheri Williams during the University of Iowa’s 1996 Dance Gala. She was a member the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company in Rhoden’s hometown, as well what then was known as Complexions: A Concept in Dance.

Rhoden and Richardson didn’t intend to start a company, nevertheless, it developed organically.

“It was just a passion project, because what we wanted to do was get together all of our friends from all the major companies, and colleagues that we respected and loved their dancing, and we wanted to do our own show. And that’s what we did,” Rhoden noted.

“Basically, once we saw the dancers who might have been more classical with the modern dancers, some of the hip-hop artists, some of the improvisers, we thought, ‘This is so special, there’s something about this.’ And out of that came an idea, ‘Well, yes, let’s start a company.’ And out of that came, ‘Well, we need to somehow make this concept of all of these various types of dancers in one room sharing their experiences (work).’ We needed to make that into a company that had a message of unity, and Complexions was really what that was,” Rhoden said.

“So it was supposed to be a project. It was not supposed to be a company, but literally, at the tech rehearsal before we opened our very first show, Desmond and I had already made a choice that we were going to take this further.”

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Rhoden’s entire career has been built on taking things further, since being “discovered” at age 17, by a professional dancer who saw him in action, mostly at high school dances in Dayton, Ohio.

“She just came over to me and said, ‘You have some real talent. You should come over to the professional company and see what it’s all about.’ She brought me over, and I watched a class,” he said. “I couldn’t believe the discipline and … I was just all in. I’d had no training, nothing, and I never looked back. I quit my job at Kroger’s and became a dancer all of a sudden. And then I was graduating from high school, and my choice had been made. I was going to become an artist. So it happened. I’m just so super lucky and grateful.”

His “fast-track” training took him to the professional company in Dayton, to New York in the summers and “many other places,” he said.

“I had some natural talent and a good body for dancing, so things progressed rather quickly, but I always was training,” he added. “My entire career involved training alongside of performing. …

“I progressed rather quickly, but I worked really hard, because there was no time. If I wanted to do this, I had to really jump in with both feet.”

He had been choreographing his own dances since his teen years, but began finding his voice as a professional choreographer in the early 1990s, while dancing with the Alvin Ailey company, then under the direction of Judith Jamison.

“She saw the talent, gave me a chance to do something, and it was received really well, and … that’s when I really started to find myself,” he said.

As he has evolved in his style as a choreographer and stepped away from dancing, he’s also enjoying his role as his company’s co-artistic director, which involves shaping the education of his young dancers, who range in age from 20s to 30s.

“For me, it has always been the reason I do what I do, because I get to work with dancers. I love young dancers and dancers who are right on the precipice of becoming everything,” he said.

“I spend my days guiding them and showing them what might be possible and encouraging them to step out. And a lot of times they teach you a lot of things, as well.

“As you’re teaching them, they’re teaching you. So it’s a wonderful exchange, and it’s super, super gratifying for me as a director. It’s what I love.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com