“Cry Me” followed Rhoden's latest, a large group piece which tests dancers' stamina with repeated, precise contemporary ballet phrases. It's entitled “This Time, With Feeling,” which is tongue in cheek, as it's rare to catch any Complexions piece that is not “full out and with feeling.” 

Complexions is characteristically over the top, in technique, emotion, and sheer energy. Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, who was the first African American principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre and, like Rhoden, a principal at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, started Complexions 30 years ago as a performative experiment. Their first show in 1994 was radical in many ways, partly because it brought together a diverse array of dancers from the ballet and contemporary dance worlds, and especially because Rhoden's ballets were raw and sexy, performed to music like U2 and Prince, rather than Mozart or Bach (although Rhoden has plenty of work to classical music, too). Rhoden and Richardson arguably brought what we might think of as popular contemporary dance into the mainstream, and you can see Rhoden's influence all over TV shows like “So You Think You Can Dance.” 

Complexions pieces always leave an audience in awe of what its dancers can do. Some of these pieces can run together, though, especially when, like the first three pieces on this Program A, they rely heavily on leg extensions, turns, and heterosexual pas de deux, and a similarly angsty emotional sensibility.