The Daily Campus

Issue date: 4/24/09 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Matt Lin Two performers in the 'Complexions' ballet dance company cavort on stage at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts Thursday night. Through edgy music and pure physicality, the group brought a modern sensibility to a classic form.

While certain images come to a person's mind when they think of the word "ballet," the images imprinted in the minds of patrons at Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts last night were nothing like the traditional ballet of yesteryear. Full of energy and life, the contemporary and riveting ballet dance company "Complexions" rocked Jorgensen to its core.

The dancing throughout combined classical ballet movements with a fresh and contemporary edge to each piece. Though many of the pieces included synchronized dancing, each dancer had an opportunity to be unique and diverse in their pieces as well as to express other human emotions, experiences and struggles, all wrapped into one seamless and flawless piece.

The three acts of the dances started with the dance suite "Hissy Fits," which displayed volatile and emotional dance pieces from 11 members of the company. Accompanied by a jarring, yet edgy reworking of J. S. Bach music, the suite set the tone for the night. The graceful, classical elements of ballet worked seamlessly with frenzied contemporary movements in which dancers displayed angular movements of their bodies, utilizing the wide space of the Jorgensen stage.

This particular piece spoke about uncontrollable emotional impulses that surround relationships we have with other people via methods such as frenzied dancing with duos, sometimes resembling fighting. Dancers also manipulated the one anothers movements at times, representing how we sometimes manipulate other peoples' emotions. The piece began and ended with the dancers holding hands, as if to symbolize we are all here, all humans baring ourselves, emotionally naked for all to see.

Even in similar nude-like costumes and stark lighting, each of the multiple dancing duos had a chance to shine, a common theme of the dance suites throughout the night.

Continued...

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