Coronet Theatre, London
March 13, 2025
The Coronet is a theatre where you expect the unusual and it is ideal for this fourth edition of Russell Maliphant’s work. The programme is focussed with microscopic precision on two solos by two dancers with exceptional movement qualities.
The simplicity of Maliphant’s new solo, In a Landscape, is awe inspiring. It may be classified as contemporary dance, but the austerity of the sculptured shapes harks back to classical Greek art. Add to this the invention of lighting designer, Panagiotis Tomaras and you have half an hour of fine art creation happening before your eyes.
Photo Dmitri Djurik
Maliphant is a veteran performer, but his muscles have not lost their fluidity neither has his intellect lost its power of invention. He works with different weights and density of white cloths. A heavy draped backcloth that remains on stage throughout is given different configurations. He opens, centre stage with a series of dramatic shapes, the pulsing lights catching the images and throwing silhouettes on the side walls. Later he returns to use this cloth, now bound into a tight bundle and it becomes a different entity, the heaviness offering deep troughs of shadow, almost enveloping his body as he lunges in and out of the light.
The two smaller sheets are released to the hang in the front of the stage. Lighting and choreography are skilfully and playfully engaged to create a trio of images before the sheets drop into puddles on the stage. Finally, the lightest of gauzes drops to create a canvas for the artist in this magic show of light and shadow. Both the setting and the choreography are minimal, but each aspect is efficiently and sparingly used, ably supported and enhanced by music from Dana Fouras.
Photo Hugo Glendinning
AfterLight was choreographed in 2009 for the Spirit of Diaghilev programme at Sadler’s Wells. Inspired by Nijinsky’s paintings of circular patterns that the dancer made in his later years in psychiatric care, they hint at a creative mind in inner turmoil and entanglement. Erik Satie‘s Gnossiennes 1-4, performed by Dustin Gledhill, has a hypnotic quality that draws focus, bonding sound and shape intimately.
Daniel Proietto, not looking a day older, repeats his award-winning performance that finds expression in every finely tuned muscle. The work has a slow burn starting as Proietto appears to revolve under the small circle of patterned light, his upper body arched and arms searching the space in dreamlike gestures. The intensity slowly builds as the lighted area increased. Proietto has a body that appears boneless, the muscles moving with the effortless efficiency showing no sign of effort. He sheds his red top and in a non-costume of white T-shirt, grey leggings and beany he creates the most ordinary of figures in quite extraordinary movement.
The lighting, by long-time associate Michael Hulls, now opens out and the movement free and flowing covers the full stage before slowly pulling back into the diminishing circle of light as darkness descends. This is a small miracle of creation, making a welcome return to the London stage and in the perfect intimate venue.