Russell Maliphant Dance Company in maliphantworks4
Russell Maliphant is back at The Coronet in Notting Hill with a fabulous double bill of old and new…
Russell Maliphant in his ‘In a Landscape’. © Dmitri Djurik
Russell Maliphant Dance Company
maliphantworks4: In a Landscape, Afterlight,
★★★★★
London, The Coronet Theatre
11 September 2025
www.russellmaliphantdancecompany.com
www.thecoronettheatre.com
Six months after Russell Maliphant premiered this double bill, it returns for a short run in the same magical space that is the Coronet Theatre. You feel as if you might be in a 19th-century anatomy theatre, all close to the action and in wonder at the human body. Like an anatomy theatre, we are there to observe serious, grown-up work, quietly lapping it up and taking in every nuance and flicker of movement of what a master is up to.
At nearly 64, Maliphant has no right to look as good as he does and move with such purposeful ease. His piece, In a Landscape, is super slow, with every step weightily considered as he plays with a set of sheer fabric hangings given greater sophistication by Panagiotis Tomaras’ lighting. There’s an almost obligatory (for Maliphant) section where he interacts with two shadows of himself, but the cleverness of the lighting that conjures this effect still captivates me.
Throughout, Maliphant remains mostly behind the drapes, gently using his hands, almost like scalpels, to nudge and tease the cloth toward us. At other times, he pulls the cloth towards himself, creating ripples of playful light. You rarely see his body; he is the almost unseen sculptor of magical, dream-like effects. This dreamy world is accentuated by the eerie soundtrack of Dana Fouras (Maliphant’s life partner, who, alas, is no longer dancing), but after 30 minutes, it all gracefully comes to an end. There’s no final flourish, yet we know we have been on a journey that has quietly reached its natural conclusion.
In a Landscape shows Maliphant still has terrific things to say as both a dancer and choreographer. In a sea of AI hype and much strident and shouty hip-hop and contemporary movement, his is an analogue world of grace and sensitivity — amen to that.
Go back 16 years, and Maliphant created Afterlight for a night of dance at Sadler’s Wells, inspired by the great impresario and shaker-up of ballet, Diaghilev, focusing on his star dancer/choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky. Sadly, Nijinsky’s troubled mind cut short his career, and you can see the closing in and weighty pressures of the world in Afterlight, with Michael Hulls’ cloudy lighting projections ever circling.
Although only 15 minutes long, it’s a Maliphant work that keeps returning, and it’s terrific to see Daniel Proietto reprise the role he created, looking as vulnerably youthful as ever. It starts with Proietto standing and slowly turning, haunted by the world, while Satie’s Gnossiennes gently, if oddly, coddles us. But as the music opens up, so does the dance, as Proietto channels Nijinsky’s magnetically expansive and cat-like movement. But not for long, as the dark world outside fully closes in on him. It is both desperately sad and rather spellbinding that we at least had a glimpse of his greatness.
Also as part of the night are two videos shown in a loop down in the separate studio at the Coronet — Film 1 and Film 2. I didn’t see them this time, but my earlier review covers them, and they are worth seeing if you have the time, not least to see Dana Fouras loosely playing with a fabulous Stevie Stuart fringed costume.
My first review of this show concluded, “We all need to see more of Maliphant,” and my view has not changed. Get along and see him while he is still dancing and looking amazing.