Complexions Contemporary Ballet took the stage to a full audience at downtown Portland’s Newmark Theatre on October 2, opening its-three night run presented by White Bird Dance.

Dwight Rhoden—who serves as founding co-artistic director alongside Desmond Richardson — introduced the company with a warm curtain speech, reflecting on the company’s recent 30th anniversary. As the choreographer of this evening of works, Rhoden described each piece briefly, offering context that situated the relevance of these works historically, culturally or personally for the audience.

Rhoden described the first work of the program, “This Time, With Feeling,” as a neoclassical piece with “an edge.” This work, choreographed in 2025, was set to original music of comparable neoclassical leanings by David Rozenblatt, and it delighted from the onset. The large cast wore svelte royal purple dance attire, designed by the company’s resident costume designer, Christine Darch. “So flexible,” I heard an audience member mumble, as one dancer extended her leg to the sky.

The dancers moved about a stark, hazy stage accented with heavy beams of light pouring from above, the work of the company’s resident lighting designer, Michael Korsch. Their choreography often seemed to unfold in bifurcated unison, with two groups of dancers on either side of the stage and one sprite-like dancer, Manuel Vaccaro, who made sweeping passes between them. Sometimes he would stop to solo or dance in brief unison with others, demonstrating remarkable precision and gusto.

I wondered if this dance contained inside jokes, perhaps the “edge” Rhoden had referred to. I noticed a dash of humor within this choreography, little surprises such as undulating spines, sexy slow walking, and limbs that thread together bizarrely. The dancers wearing pointe shoes would strike a wide stance on their toes, allowing their partners to drag them in this strange position — a signature move reoccurring throughout the playbill.

With these touches of levity, “This Time, With Feeling” demonstrated a neoclassicism that embraced adventure without taking itself too seriously, a truly refreshing approach to ballet. It ended with a spinning partner lift as lights faded, winding the crowd up for what else was to come.

Rhoden explained that “First Comes Love” — a 2025 duet set on the company’s co-associate artistic directors, Jillian Davis and Joe González — dealt in the realm of “relationships.” This framing humored me with its peculiar nature, especially because Davis and González, both dressed in black, danced in extremely close proximity to one another for most of the time.

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I could not shake my most literal interpretation of this work: two real-life colleagues trying to work through something together. At its conclusion Davis walked offstage, and González paused for a moment before following. Here, I realized that Rhoden truly knew how to level a closing punctuation mark in his choreography, making it stick in memory.

“Unification” and “brotherhood” arose as themes in Rhoden’s description of “Gone,” a dance by three men of ambiguous, yet intimate, relationship to one another. They all danced shirtless to music by Civil Rights champion Odetta with the repeating lyrics, “I didn’t know his name,” “He had a long chain on,” and “another man done gone.”

These words ushered in the history of enslavement and mass incarceration in the United States, while suggesting that those abducted, disappeared, or passed are never truly gone. The dancers grappled with one another holding arms in a circle, as if resisting and supporting each other at once. They danced athletically and swept strong fists to the sky. They brought the rigor of abstract storytelling to this work, inviting many readings — of brotherly relationships, resistance and resilience, even queer love, and a volley of life force strong enough to keep one another going.

Next came “Ave Maria,” a work made in 1995, the second year of the company’s existence, to Rhoden’s grandmother’s favorite hymn. This work reflected ballet’s early history as a mechanism for connecting to the divine, adding a contemporary twist.

The duet began to the tune of a harpsichord music by Giulio Caccini, with dancers Joe González and April Watson, dressed in purple leotards with gold trim. They struggled in a puzzling fashion over one another, crawling through each other’s legs quickly. They danced upright at a staccato pace, on top of the music, performing intricate partner work that stunned. The piece ended abruptly as they unfolded their forms into a final cosmic lift, González lying with his back to the ground and lofting Watson as she opened her arms to the sky.

Rhoden explained that “Mercy (excerpt)” was created in 2009 in the wake of 9/11. I recognized the confusing timbre of this work, a reaction to a historic tragedy far more complex than could be imagined at its inception. The dancers wore white flowing costumes, vaguely liturgical and conservative, as they danced to music by Hanz Zimmer. During one section, the cast slid, lifted, and sat on buckets frenetically, as if to symbolize empty waiting and restlessness coupled with loss. I observed much desperate walking and many clasped prayer hands in this dance, indicating a grasping return to faith in the wake of mass grief.

After intermission came the finale, “For Crying Out Loud (excerpt)” from 2023, set to various acoustic versions of U2 songs. Rhoden jokingly noted that he, U2, and the company are all “old”—and I appreciated this sentiment as a reflection of his lasting pop cultural influences.

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The whole cast walked upstage in sync in their mauve costumes—by now, I had come to recognize this as the slow sexy stride quintessential to the company’s oeuvre. They broke out into jubilant partnering motifs and ensemble dancing. I noticed punctuating moments that disrupted the flow of choreography, such as a pause for caring embraces or moments of running in place. At one liminal moment, González stood swiveling his hips in silence until Watson joined him to dance to the familiar song “With or Without You.” I imagined this entire work as a musically-inspired fantasy, something born out of a choreographer’s imagination with enough resources to give it life.

As the show ended, the curtain lowered and then lifted again to reveal the dancers clapping, then launching into a series of many bows and gestures of gratitude. Complexions Contemporary Ballet brought a welcome energy of joy, and I overheard audience members speaking excitedly about the performance as they made their way out into the night. The company reminds that growth, change, and humor can bring new life to old forms—to ballet, music, and beyond.