Photo by Andrea Mohin, from NY Times, of Complexions’ cast of Mercy, Desmond Richardson center.
Complexions is currently at the Joyce in Chelsea and they’ve got two nice new pieces (both by artistic director, Dwight Rhoden) — Dirty Wire and Mercy. I liked both but particularly Mercy. It’s spiritual but uses a medley of both classical and contemporary music, is very dramatic, and has themes of sin and treachery. I found the movement original and expressive, and the miraculous Desmond Richardson has a rather intense, mysterious solo. All of the Complexions dancers are excellent though. Rhoden really works them hard — his movement is almost always very fast — sometimes almost spastic, on purpose — and great precision is required in order to make those lightning-fast changes of shape.
They’re on through November 29th. Go here for details.
