Fast and Furious

On Tuesday night, the modern dance troupe Complexions Contemporary Ballet opened a weeklong run at the Joyce Theatre with Dwight Rhoden’s “Hissy Fits.” Together with Desmond Richardson, Mr. Rhoden is a founding artistic director of Complexions. He has a voice and a style, but “Hissy Fits” seemed repetitious and kinetically circumscribed. Performed to a wonderfully varied Bach score, couples and solo figures twist, squiggle, undulate, and spin, and almost everything is frenetically fast and jabbing, as if the dancers are indeed having hissy fits. Mr. Rhoden varied the stage picture with frequent exits and entrances, and constantly morphing clusters and multiples of dancers, but nevertheless it became monotonous. It almost looked like a dancer’s audition piece, because above all it showcased the fusion technique the dancers employ with assurance and panache. They flip instantly between turned-in and turned-out, between spatial alignment that is off-balance and plumb-line vertical, and handily negotiate a gamut of fast-and-furious partnering acrobatics.