Complexions Troupe Puts on Its Best Face

Complexions is essentially a pickup company enlisting 21 dancers (plus guests) on loan from some of the finest ballet and modern dance ensembles in America. But everyone worked together skillfully enough to redeem an evening of shallow, derivative, in-your-face Dwight Rhoden choreography on the opening night of a four-day run at the Ahmanson Theatre on Thursday.

A former dancer in the Alvin Ailey company, Rhoden specializes in rootless, desperate-to-please choreography. However, when his work is in the keeping of paragons such as Uri Sands, Miho Morinoue, Jamal Story and Complexions co-director Desmond Richardson, his crude effects matter less than their inspired execution.

In approach, much of Rhoden’s work focuses on nonstop ballet bravura in exactly the balance-testing, genre-fusing style pioneered by former Merce Cunningham dancer Karole Armitage nearly 20 years ago, but without Armitage’s taste. Happily, his Complexions dancers bring a level of sheen, of class, to his work that neutralizes its vulgarity.

The excerpt from “Ave Maria,” for example, may set ruinously fast, hectic gymnastic tasks against serene, spiritual music by Caccini, but a majestic performance by Valerie Madonia and Meredith Rainey makes a gauche concept palatable. Similarly, veteran modern dancers Carmen de Lavallade and Gus Solomons Jr. bring great integrity and force to “It All,” one of the three intense duets-in-chairs on the program.

Many of Rhoden’s works hit a level and exhaust their ideas very early, so distinctive casting and music is all that’s left, whether in “It All” (to Bjork) or in the excerpt from “Please, Please, Please” (to James Brown), conceived as a power struggle between Sarita Allen and Marc Mann with a strong sexual undercurrent.

Richardson remains a master at making damaged goods look like priceless treasure, and it’s redemptive to watch him simply jump into position in the portentous balletic ensemble piece “From Me to You in About Half the Time” (music by Antonio Carlos Scott) or strongly support Morinoue’s balances-in-extension while executing a vocabulary of intricate torso undulations.

“In a Very Unusual Way” finds his limbs and torso fragmenting into clusters of independent pulses and suddenly unifying in whole-body statements of resplendent classical line. Unforgettable.

This dancer’s dancer also partners Allen and Morinoue in “Higher Ground,” an extended suite for nearly all of Complexions to Earth, Wind & Fire. Here Rhoden downplays all his high-pressure hand-me-down balleticisms in favor of a more relaxed and engaging pop style. In an evening dedicated to relentless audience manipulation, it’s the friendliest, most genuinely pleasurable offering--and allows some of the finest non -balletic women such as Mucuy Bolles and Solange Sandy-Groves to shine as brightly as their classical colleagues.

Singers Pauletta Washington and Charles Veal Jr. and cellist Catherine Cavella lend their talents to the occasion, though taped music accompanies most of the pieces. Spectacular overhead shafts of light designed by Michael Korsch not only punctuate the dances but often give them a sense of drama missing in the movement.

“Growth” (a solo for Sheri “Sparkle” Williams), “Givin’ Up” (a duet for Don Bellamy and Michael Thomas) and the sextet “Wiegen Lied” complete the program.

The Thursday gala began with actors Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick Swayze telling the audience that L.A. needs and lacks a dance company (no, they didn’t say “major,” but just “a dance company”) and that Rhoden’s choreography is “cutting-edge.” One hopes that concerned parties gently disabuse them of both misconceptions.

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Complexions performs tonight at 8, and Sunday at 2 p.m., in the Ahmanson Theatre, L.A. Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown. $15 to $55. (213) 628-2772.