Three works explore how light and movement can reshape the stage, turning the theatre into a series of fleeting, self-contained worlds.
Russell Maliphant has always been fascinated by space — not simply the stage as a physical site, but something sculpted by light, shadow and movement. In Landscapes, presented at Sadler’s Wells East, that fascination becomes the evening’s central language. Across three works, bodies seem less like performers occupying a stage than figures moving through shifting environments of light and shadow, each piece forming its own self-contained world.
Afterlight begins almost disorientingly — like drowning.
Daniel Proietto’s movements feel submerged; his arms trace fluid arcs and his turns are slow and controlled. The choreography feels watery and hypnotic, almost lulling. Watching Proietto, there is a sense of being held within a steady rhythm.
Towards the end, strips of light begin to flicker in rapid succession, creating an effect reminiscent of a spinning zoetrope — movement broken into flickering fragments.
And then the lights come up for Proietto’s bow. The transition is oddly unsettling. After so long inside the piece’s carefully contained world, the sudden reveal of the theatre — the vast black box of the stage — feels almost intrusive. The dancer had occupied the space so completely that seeing its actual scale comes as a quiet shock.
If Afterlight flows like water, Two feels almost architectural.
Alina Cojocaru remains contained within a square of light — a box within a box — and the movement responds accordingly: sharper, more angular, limbs carving precise trajectories through the air. Where Proietto dissolved into fluidity, Cojocaru slices the space into sharp outlines.
Maliphant’s choreography becomes a study in shadows. Dressed entirely in black, Cojocaru sometimes dissolves into the darkness so that only fragments remain visible: an arm, a hand, a flicker of a shoulder. Certain movements leave a faint visual trail — the blur of an arm slicing through the air like an afterimage.
Towards the end, the lighting narrows further until only the dancer’s arms remain visible, hovering in the darkness like disembodied forms. When the final flash of light illuminates the entire square again, there is an audible “wow” from the audience — the unmistakable sound of a theatrical trick revealed at precisely the right moment.
The final piece, In a Landscape, is danced by Maliphant himself, and it carries a more reflective atmosphere.
It begins behind a heavy drape, luxuriously textured and softly lit. Once again the lighting does most of the dramaturgical work, shifting Maliphant between solid presence and ghostly outline.
One particularly striking moment places him between two gauze curtains. Spotlights positioned either side throw twin shadows across the fabric so that his body appears tripled: the dancer flanked by two shifting silhouettes. There are no projections, no elaborate set pieces, no elaborate costume — only light, fabric and a moving body. The effect is unexpectedly moving.
This simplicity feels almost cleansing. Watching Maliphant move in that stripped-back space becomes a quiet reminder of how powerful dance can be when reduced to its most essential elements: body, light, and time.
Landscapes offers something rare — an evening where choreography and lighting feel inseparable, each generating the other. At its best, the result is not just dance, but atmosphere: environments that briefly exist, before disappearing back into darkness.