Complexions Contemporary Ballet
Thursday, October 24, 2013; 7:30 pm
Friday, October 25, 2013; 8 pm
ACT I — MOON OVER JUPITER (2010)
Choreography by: Dwight Rhoden
Lighting Design by: Michael Korsch
Projection Artwork by: Desmond Richardson
Music by: Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov
Costumes by: Christine Darch
Performed by: The Company
The creation of MOON OVER JUPITER is supported, in part, by
public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural
Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
INTERMISSION
ACT II — RECUR (2013)
Choreography by: Jae Man Joo
Lighting Design by: Michael Korsch
Music by: Keith Kenniff, Olafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm,
Hanuschka, Max Richter, and Georg Friedrich Handel
Costumes by: Kelly Brown
Performed by: The Company
recur – Life is about things that happen to us that are only
important when we look back at them. If they stay with us
they become part of us. If not they are cast off.
INTERMISSION
ACT III — RISE (2008)
Choreography by: Dwight Rhoden
Lighting Design by: Michael Korsch
Music by: U2*
Costumes by: Christine Darch
Performed by: The Company
*All rights owned or administered by UNIVERSAL-POLYGRAM INT. PUBL., INC.
on behalf of UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBL. INT. B.V. (ASCAP). Used by permission.
THE COMPANY
Edgar Anido, Mark Caserta, Jourdan Epstein, Samantha
Figgins, Gary W. Jeter II, Youngsil Kim, Ashley Nicole Mayeux,
Casey McIntyre, Phil Orsano, Kris Nobles, Kelly Sneddon,
and Terk Waters
APPRENTICESHIP
McCallah Moriarty and Addison Ector
Special thanks to Sharon Callaly of Principal Management,
Morleigh Steinberg and Cynthia Quinn.
This ballet is dedicated to Gerald M. Appelstein for his generous
support, leadership and love.
Program subject to change
It is artistic directors Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson’s
lifelong appreciation for the artistic & aesthetic appeal of
the multicultural that forms the cornerstone of Complexions
Contemporary Ballet’s singular approach to reinventing dance.
Founded in 1994, Complexions’ groundbreaking mix of methods,
styles, and cultures has created an entirely new and exciting
vision of human movement over the past 18 years.
Complexions has received numerous awards including the New
York Times “Critics' Choice” Award. It has appeared throughout
the US, including the Joyce Theater/NY, Lincoln Center/NY,
the Brooklyn Academy of Music‘s/NY, the Mahalia Jackson
Performance Arts Center in New Orleans, the Paramount Theatre
in Seattle, the Music Center in Los Angeles, and the Winspear
Opera House/Dallas.
The Company has appeared at major European dance festivals
including Italy’s Festival of Dance for four consecutive years, the
Isle De Dance Festival in Paris, the Maison De La Dance Festival
in Lyon, the Holland Dance Festival, Steps International Dance
Festival in Switzerland, Łódź Biennale, Warsaw Ballet Festival,
Kraków Spring Ballet Festival, the Dance Festival of Canary
Islands/Spain, and Le Festival des Arts de St-Sauveur/Canada,
and in Korea, Spain, and Australia.
The company’s foremost innovation is that dance should be about
removing boundaries, not reinforcing them. Whether it be limiting
traditions of a single style, period, venue, or culture, Complexions
transcends them all, creating an open, continually evolving form
of dance that reflects the movement of our world—and all its
constituent cultures—as an interrelated whole.
It is Rhoden and Richardson’s unique career paths that have
paved the way for them to re-define dance—as their multifaceted
resumes will show, neither has ever been comfortable with his
art being placed in a box. Instead, from E! to PBS to VH1, from
Cirque de Soleil to the Joffrey Ballet, the two have allowed the
transformative power of their art to flow freely throughout the
entertainment world—their creative vision restricted by nothing
but the limits of the human body itself.
Together, Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson have created
in Complexions an institution that embodies its historical moment,
a sanctuary where those passionate about dance can celebrate
its past while simultaneously building its future. In the 16 years
since its inception, the company has born witness to a world that
is becoming more fluid, more changeable, and more culturally
interconnected than ever before—in other words, a world that is
becoming more and more like Complexions itself.
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Complexions Contemporary Ballet continued
FOUNDING ARTISTIC DIRECTORS
Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson
RESIDENT CHOREOGRAPHER
Dwight Rhoden
ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR / BALLET MASTER
Jae Man Joo
ARTISTIC ADVISOR
Carmen de Lavallade & Sarita Allen
GENERAL MANAGER
Michael J. Moore
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR & RESIDENT LIGHTING DESIGNER
Michael Korsch
PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER
Kelly Brown
DWIGHT RHODEN (Founding
Artistic Director/Resident
Choreographer of Complexions
Contemporary Ballet) has
established a remarkably
wide-ranging career, earning
distinction from The New York
Times as “one of the most
sought out choreographers of the day.” A na­tive of Dayton, OH
who began dancing at age 17, Rhoden has performed with
Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Les Ballet Jazz de
Montreal, and as a principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theater. He has appeared in numerous television
specials, documentaries and commercials throughout the
United States, Canada and Europe and has been a featured
performer on many PBS Great Performances specials.
Since 1994 Rhoden’s choreography has been the lynchpin
in the development of the Com­plexions repertory. He has
been praised for his prolific body of work, visionary style
and boundary-breaking sensibility. Rhoden has created
over 80 ballets for Complexions, as well as numerous other
companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,
The Arizona Ballet, The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Company,
Ballet Gamonet, The Dance Theater of Harlem, Dayton
Contemporary Dance Company, The Joffrey Ballet, Miami
City Ballet, New York City Ballet/Diamond Project, North
Carolina Dance Theater, The Pennsylvania Ballet, Philadanco,
Minneapolis Dance Theater, Phoenix Dance Company,
Sacramento Ballet, Oakland Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet
Theater, The Washington Ballet, and Zenon Dance Company.
He has worked with, coached, and created for some of
the most diverse artists spanning the world of ballet and
contemporary dance. “Rhoden’s work is post-Balanchinean
choreography, a new aesthetic in movement, stage, picture,
and performance concepts reflecting a post-modern, technosavvy worldview.” (Dance Magazine)
Widely known as “a dancer’s choreographer,” Rhoden
has worked with, coached and created for some of the
most diverse artists spanning the worlds of ballet and
contemporary dance. He has directed and choreographed for
TV, film, theater and live performances including So You Think
You Can Dance, E! Entertainment’s Tribute to Style and Cirque
Du Soleil. He has also worked with such high-profile artists
as Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Kelly Clarkson and Patrick Swayze.
Rhoden is the Resident Choreographer of North Carolina
Dance Theatre and has lectured, taught, created works for
and served as Artist-in-Residence at universities around
the United States including New York University, Juilliard
and The University of Mississippi, where his 2004 Racial
Reconciliation Project was credited as a catalyst for dialogue
in a community that has been historically divided. Rhoden
is a 1998 New York Foundation for the Arts Award recipient
and beneficiary of the 2001 Choo San Goh Award for
Choreography. In May 2006 he received The Ailey School’s
Apex Award in recognition of his extensive contributions to
the field of dance.
DESMOND RICHARDSON
(Founding Artistic Director/
Artist-in-Residence). Hailed by
The New York Times as “one of
the great modern dancers of
his time,” Desmond Richardson
is a multi-talented artist who
has mastered a wide range of
classical, modern and contemporary dance genres. Praised
for his powerful dancing and singular perform­ance quality,
Richardson has been the hall­mark performer who has shaped
the essence of the Complexions style for over a decade.
When he danced the lead role in the Ameri­can Ballet
Theatre’s world premiere of Oth­ello, The New York Times
described him as “one of the most majestic dancers ever
to tread the Metropolitan Opera House stage.” In 1998,
Richardson joined the original cast of the Broadway musical
Fosse, for which he received a 1999 Tony Award nomination.
Working in television, film and video in the United States and
abroad, Richardson has performed with such musical artists
as Michael Jackson, Prince, Aretha Franklin and Madonna.
He made his on-screen sing­ing debut in Charles Randolph
Wright’s 2005 film Preaching to the Choir and is featured
in Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi’s film One Last Dance as
well as the Oscar-winning movie adaptation of Chicago.
Richardson appeared in Julie Taymor’s film Across the
Universe and also performed the lead role of Beowulf in her
Grendel at the LA Opera and The New York State Theater.
Among his many honors are The Ailey School’s 2006 Apex
Award and the prestig­ious 2007 Dance Magazine Award. He
is also a recipient of a 1986 Presidential Scholar Award for
the Arts and will be awarded the NFAA Alumni award later
in 2009. Recently, he and Dwight Rhoden partnered with
Diana Vishneva for her one-woman show, Beauty in Motion,
at New York City Center, the Orange County Performing Arts
Center and in Mos­cow, Russia. In May 2008, he was one of
two dancers invited by the President of the United States to
perform at the 60th Presidential Conference in Israel. This
June, Richardson appeared on the Fox television hit, So You
Think You Can Dance, for which he choreo­graphed a duet with
Dwight Rhoden.
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