Mosaic of dance

The Charleston Concert Association presents Complexions Contemporary Ballet, toasted as "an imaginative mash-up of classical technique with Alvin Ailey roots and 'So You Think You Can Dance' accessibility." // Photo provided

In its embodiment of the artistic appeal of multiculturalism, Complexions Contemporary Ballet reflects what former President Jimmy Carter once said of this impulse in the broader cultural arena:

"We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams."

With one goal: to discover and develop our respective gifts, to add our piece to the mosaic.

Presented by the Charleston Concert Association and hailed as "an imaginative mash-up of classical technique with Alvin Ailey roots and 'So You Think You Can Dance' accessibility," Complexions alights in Gaillard Municipal Auditorium at 7 p.m. Saturday for a performance in three acts.

The reinvention of dance is the strategy of artistic directors Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, one-time members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater who formed Complexions in 1994.

Employing an innovative blend of methods, styles and cultures has helped the company create a vivid new vision of human movement and how dancers inhabit space, so much so that Complexions has been called "sculpture in motion."

The company's principal strategy is that dance should be about removing boundaries, not reinforcing them, say the directors, whether those limiting traditions be a single style, period, venue or culture.

Complexions attempts to transcend them all with "an open, continually evolving form of dance" that reflects "the movement of our world, and all its constituent cultures,

as an interrelated whole." The only limits are those of the human body. And these are routinely challenged.

In the 17 years of CCB's existence, the company has witnessed a world that is increasingly fluid, more changeable and with old boundaries giving way to interconnected cultures, rather like Complexions itself.

Today, with Richardson and Rhoden (who doubles as resident choreographer), Jae Man Joo as ballet master and Amadea Edwards as executive director, Complexions continues to enhance its international reputation.

A principal dancer for numerous companies, Rhoden has created more than 80 ballets for Complexions as well as new work for various other troupes, among them the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet Company, Ballet Gamonet, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Joffrey Ballet, the Washington Ballet and New York City Ballet.

The Dayton, Ohio, native also has appeared in numerous television specials, documentaries and commercials throughout the United States, Canada and Europe, not least as a featured performer on many PBS "Great Performances" specials.

He does double duty as resident choreographer of the North Carolina Dance Theatre.

Richardson, the CCB's artist-in-residence, is a dance, musical theater and motion picture veteran hailed by The New York Times as "one of the great modern dancers of his time." Working in television, film and video here and abroad, Richardson has performed with such musical acts as the late Michael Jackson, Prince, Aretha Franklin and Madonna.

A 1999 Tony Award nominee for the original Broadway cast production of "Fosse," Richardson also danced the lead role in the American Ballet Theatre's world premiere of "Othello."

"This stable of thoroughbred dancers combines the best of athleticism, lyricism and training in the exquisite choreography of Rhoden and Richardson," says Jason Nichols, director of the Charleston Concert Association.

Complexions' Richardson and Rhoden were unavailable for comment.

Reach Bill Thompson at 937-5707.