Choreographer: Russell Maliphant
Three performers and three short dance solos make up Russell Maliphant’s Landscapes, and yet it’s light rather than land that melds the three pieces together. A single dancer on the stage at Sadler’s Wells East is all that is required to make a dance full of emotion, keening with blissful solitude.
First up is Daniel Proietto in Afterlight, a dance inspired by the drawings of Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. When the spotlight finds Proietto, initially it seems as if Sadler’s Wells has obtained a revolve, so elegantly and measuredly does Proietto spin on the spot. Cutting an androgynous figure in a scarlet jacket and blue jeans, from a distance his beanie looks like a shock of bleached hair. With lots of arched backs, Proietto moves across a floor of ever-diminishing clouds to the familiar sounds of Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes. While the projected clouds don’t conjure up the Nijinsky artworks, the spiral lines that Proietto makes, especially towards the end, are echoes of the drawings that the Russian dancer made at the end of the First World War.
Sandwiched in the middle of Landscapes is Two, danced by Alina Cojocaru, and it’s the best dance of the night. Two is performed in a tight box of light, and then later in a box within a box. It starts slowly as the only sound emitted from Andy Cowton’s score is that of bleeps from a submarine. Cojocaru stretches out her arms to the light’s limits. But when the drum and bass beat kicks in, her moves are frenetic yet purposeful. Sometimes the beats are hit; others are deliberately missed. When Michael Hull’s light suddenly changes, it’s as if Cojocaru is dancing in a night exposure photograph. Her elongated arms are now smears of light, almost solid in form. It’s thrilling and thrillingly short.
Rounding up the evening in Maliphant himself dancing In A Landscape, where Panagiotis Tomaras’s lights make architecture of cloths and curtains that hang or are dropped from above. Maliphant’s figure creates two shadows, seemingly dancing a pas de deux, although the lights throw a further two silhouettes on the walls of the auditorium. The shapes that he creates on the centre drapes are reminiscent of what is seen at the bottom of a kaleidoscope or the watercolours of a Rorschach test. Maliphant appears to walk through endless doors.
But while it’s always beautiful to look at, the dance doesn’t quite flow. There’s one section where the material is abandoned, and Maliphant spends time moving on the floor, finishing with a random hip hop headstand freeze. Perhaps it’s best to watch this final dance under the influence of strong hallucinogens.
Runs until 14 March 2026
