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Jo Tomalin

Russell Maliphant Company: AfterLight

By November 2, 2012November 20th, 2012No Comments
Image of Russell Maliphant Company

Russell Maliphant Company
Thomasin Gülgeç and Gemma Nixon in AfterLight
Photo: Dana Fouras

 

Dynamic New Dance Work from London

Opening Night of the London based Russell Maliphant Company’s new dance work titled AfterLight on October 13, 2012, presented by San Francisco Performances at the Lam Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, glowed very warmly.

AfterLight is co-produced by the Russell Maliphant Company and London’s prestigious dance venue Sadler’s Wells, where it had it’s world premiere on September 28, 2010. Maliphant directed and choreographed this work that comprises several parts set to Erik Satie’s beautiful Piano Music: Gnossiennes 1 – 4 and Original Music by Andy Cowton.

Originally trained in ballet Maliphant danced with the Sadler’s Wells Royal ballet for several years. He has since danced with DV8 Physical Theatre, Michael Clark & Company, then created his own company and set works on renowned artists and companies including Sylvie Guillem, Robert Lepage, Ballet Boyz and Lyon Opera Ballet.

AfterLight is not a story ballet. Malipant describes it as a Nijinsky inspired piece he developed while working closely with Lighting Designer Michael Hulls, that is more about “painting in space” with the dance flowing through space and light, expressing elements from photos of the legendary dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. Maliphant and Hull worked at first by improvising light and dark elements to produce a “shower of light” with projections and animations (by Jan Urbanowski & James Chorley) to explore the movement and light together, before refining the choreography for an audience.

As an interesting aside, not all of the music choices were made before the dances – some music was selected after the dance and light choreography, according to Maliphant. This is extraordinary, because the choreography as a whole seems to respond to the music – and the one complements the other incredibly well.

Malipant’s choreography melds traditional dance to his interests in physical movement and bio-mechanics. AfterLight, with Costume Design by Stevie Stewart, is an exquisite one hour performance of ephemeral, sculptural, meditative, muscular movement, which resonates from the three outstanding dancers, Silvina Cortés, Thomasin Gülgeç and Gemma Nixon to produce a dynamic and stirring audience experience.

The Russel Maliphant Company is currently touring internationally and will perform The Rodin Project in New York City December 3, 5-9, 2012.

San Francisco Performances upcoming November events include:

More Information & Tickets:

Russel Maliphant Company
http://www.rmcompany.co.uk

San Francisco Performances
http://www.performances.org

Jo Tomalin
Critics World
www.forallevents.com