Russell Maliphant Dance Company, Landscapes

Last Updated on March 12, 2026

Three exceptional dancers in a magical triple bill.

5.0 out of 5.0 stars

Three exceptional dancers.  Three short dances, each mesmerising in its own way. One memorable evening at Sadler’s Wells East, even if its huge stage is far too big for the kind of intimate programme which Russell Maliphant has been staging over the past few years.

Two of the pieces in Maliphant’s Landscapes triple bill – In a Landscape and Afterlight – were last seen in the smaller, more congenial Coronet Theatre last autumn, danced respectively by Russell Maliphant and the Argentine Daniel Proietto.  The third,Two, was created on Maliphant’s artistic and life partner, Dana Fouras, in 1997, and subsequently made famous internationally by that monster sacré of dance, Sylvie Guillem. It is danced in this programme by Alina Cojocaru.

The programme opens with the 15-minute long Afterlight.   

In an otherwise dark stage, Daniel Proietto stands within a narrow pool of light wearing a bright red satin blouson, a white woollen cap, his pale face and prominent cheekbones suggesting a tormented artist.  Afterlight was Maliphant’s contribution to Sadler’s Wells 1999 mixed programme, an homage to the impresario Sergei Diaghilev on the centenary of his Ballet Russes, and was inspired by the tragic, legendary dancer Nijinsky.

Set to Eric Satie’s crystalline ‘Gnossienes 1-4’, it is lit by Maliphant’s regular collaborator Michael Hulls, who provides the shifting combinations of light and shade that frame Proietto’s movement.  With his long, eloquent arms, uncommonly supple torso and feline agility, you just can’t take your eyes off Proietto.  He starts slowly, arms stretching out as if to touch something invisible, torso bending, while his rotation on the spot gradually accelerates.

With ‘Gnossienne 2’, the light swells to cover the entire stage in restless swirls, as Proietto, now freed from confinement, expands his range of movement.  The lighting design suggests Nijinsky’s compulsive drawings while confined to a mental asylum; the dancer reflects those, and his dancing takes on a faster, more frenzied quality.   Maliphant created Afterlight on the extraordinary Proietto; other dancers may perhaps take it on, but none with the raw power Proietto instils into his dancing.

You can’t take your eyes off Alina Cojocaru either,  no matter what she’s dancing.  A tremendously versatile performer, formerly a principal dancer with The Royal Ballet and English National Ballet and an international star, more recently guesting with London City Ballet, she is as much at ease in pure classical ballet as in contemporary dance; she takes to Russell Maliphant’s unique choreographic language as to the manner born.

Two finds her confined to a rectangle of light (Michael Hulls again), from which, unlike Proietto, she will not escape.   Andy Cowton’s score starts with bell-like notes over a distant rumbling.  Barefoot and costumed in black by Maliphant’s regular costume designer Stevie Stewart, she stretches one arm, then the other.  Her movements are individual, jerky, contrasting with the smooth flow of Afterlight.  As the music picks up, so Cojocaru responds to its syncopation with poses at times reminiscent of Tai Chi.  Two is an 8-minute wonder, made even more special by Cojocaru’s performance.

In a Landscape comes after the interval, and although it features only one dancer, Russell Maliphant himself, calling it a solo would be a misnomer.  Instead, this is a joint dance for one man, a set of diaphanous drapes and shadows cast by Mailphant as a result of Panagiotis Tomaras’s ingenious lighting, the whole driven by Dana Fouras’s propulsive score

We first glimpse Maliphant, dressed in a grey boiler suit, behind a translucent draped curtain upstage.  Between blackouts, he offers static poses, which gradually evolve into a smooth continuum. His choreographic language is a unique blend of classical ballet, contemporary dance, Eastern martial arts and Brazilian capoeira, all informed by Eastern philosophies, with the Eastern element prominent in the second section of In a Landscape, where Maliphant, having moved downstage, engages with two diaphanous drapes, which have unfurled from above.

In perhaps the most dazzling section of this 30-minute piece, the dancer stands behind the drapes at the central point where they meet, casting two shadows that dance with him in extra slow, hypnotic movements.  It’s truly magical.

All three are pieces that bear viewing again and again without ever losing their magical quality. Together they make for a short, perfectly balanced and thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Russell Maliphant Dance Company, Landscapes is at Sadler’s Wells East, 11 – 14 March

Sadler’s Wells East
Stratford Walk
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
London, E20 2AR

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