Howard University Dance Program joins Complexions Contemporary Ballet
Howard Dance Program Students to perform "Black Is Beautiful" at the Kennedy Center
Celebrating its 30th season in 2024, Complexions Contemporary Ballet comes to the Opera House stage for its first full company engagement at the Kennedy Center, March 20 - 22, 2025. The pioneering company seeks to remove traditional boundaries and embrace the beauty of differences by presenting courageous, cutting-edge programming and encouraging dancers to be authentically themselves.
Founded in 1994 by the renowned Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, Complexions Contemporary Ballet is recognized for its new, exciting vision of human movement, reinventing dance through a groundbreaking mix of methods, styles, and cultures. The program includes a new work by Rhoden entitled For Crying Out Loud. Set to 10 songs from U2’s acoustic album Songs of Surrender, the piece unfolds in an interconnected “wandering narrative.” The full company shines in its diversity, and the raw physicality of individual dancers is undeniable.
Opening the program each night, “Black is Beautiful” will be performed by Dance Program students from the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Howard University have a 3-year relationship that began with a dance residency for students with co-artistic directors, Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson and teaching artist, Larissa Joseph, who is now Howard’s new dance program coordinator. Dwight and Desmond were also on faculty at Howard University having completed their first year in 2023-2024.
Program Listing
Black is Beautiful (2021)
Performed by Dance Program students from the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University
This Time, With Feeling (2024)
Music by David Rosenblatt
GONE (2000)
Music by Odetta
Ave Maria (1995)
Music by Giulio Caccini and Vyatcheslav Kagan
Mercy (2009)
Music by Hans Zimmer
-Intermission-
For Crying Out Loud (2023)
Music by U2
Let’s Talk Dance
Film Screening and Conversation
Howard University Dance Program & Complexions Contemporary Ballet
Join us on Friday, March 21, 2025 for a film screening of “Who’s Next?” - a short film by the student-run Take 6 Productions that uses the storytelling of Chadwick A. Boseman’s legacy to define the blueprint of young artists in Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts.
A panel conversation will follow the film screening, focusing on the Disney Storytellers Fund Project at Howard University which supported this film project, and the ongoing relationship between Howard University’s Dance Program and Complexions Contemporary Ballet on display March 20 - 22, 2025 at the Kennedy Center.
Panelists will include some of the student filmmakers from Take 6, faculty and staff from Howard University, as well as an industry leader connected with this work.