© Hugo Gledinning 'One Part II' reviews 'Two Times Three' reviews 'Two' reviews 'Choice' reviews Maliphant in reviews Pomero in reviews recent Russell Maliphant reviews more Suzanne McCarthy reviews

As the performance was given against a solid black curtain, the lighting arrangement became an integral and significant element. Again Maliphant has chosen to collaborate with the lighting designer Michael Hullis in devising the three pieces presented, One Part II (2002), Two Times Three (2003) and Choice. Hullis trained in dance and theatre at Dartington College of Arts, and he and Maliphant have over time successfully devised a special interaction between light and movement that is highly effective in presenting Maliphant’s very individual choreographic style. At its core is the relationship between movement and gravity, with the dancers becoming expressions of light. Maliphant has said that in his work he is searching for “anatomical awareness, knowledge of freedom of movement in the joints, elongation, stretching your spine in both directions, articulated and intelligent body”. All of this was realised on this occasion.

The first piece One Part II, is a reworked commission by DanceEast of his 1998 Dance Umbrella piece 'One'. Performed as a 15 minute solo by Maliphant to the sounds of Glen Gould playing Bach, Maliphant weaves, twists and bends in episodic fashion under the blaze of intermittent overhead search lights. He is concurrently exposed and hidden, for, while his body and head are clearly visible, his face is not. He this becomes an “Everyman” figure, without personality and caged by his own humanity. It is a highly effective piece, but one which maybe would be even more powerful if it was shortened to 10 minutes.
 

Russell Maliphant Company at Dance Umbrella 2003
© Hugo Gledinning

Two Times Three is an expanded version of Maliphant’s solo Two. In that piece one female is trapped in a box of light. In this new work three female dancers move like Indian statuary that come alive in increasingly energised movement to a specially commissioned sound score by Andy Cowton. In the end their aims and legs, moving in soaring arcs, become waving flags or beacons firing the stage in their vibrant glow. The dancers, Anna Williams, Flora Bourderon and Marie Goudot, deserved the enthusiastic applause they received.

In Choice, a work for the whole company and given its London premier on this occasion, Maliphant demonstrated once again his strong gift for writing riveting pas de deux for men. As in 'Critical Mass', the company’s two male dancers, the excellent Miquel de Jong and Michael Pomero (the latter recently seen with George Piper Dancers dancing with William Trevitt in the absence of Michael Nunn), moved together with strength, agility and grace across the stage, lifting and linking their bodies into architectural forms that effortlessly rose and sank.

Maliphant left the Royal Ballet after becoming dissatisfied with the reduction in the number of modern works performed by that company. His work does, however, build on this foundation in expanding dance grammar. If there are any quibbles it is that Maliphant realises so closely his personal dance philosophy that the movements can appear too repetitive. Having said that, their undoubted mesmeric quality was a joy.