Russell Maliphant trained at The Royal Ballet School and graduated into Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet before leaving to pursue a career in independent dance. He danced with DV8, Michael Clark, Rosemary Butcher and Laurie Booth – with whom he was awarded a Time Out Live award for ‘raising improvisational dance to new heights’.
Between 1991–1994 Maliphant studied anatomy, physiology and biomechanics, and qualified as a practitioner of the Rolf Method of Structural Integration (or Rolfing) in 1994. These studies inform both his teaching and choreographic work, along with a diverse range of body practices and techniques including classical ballet, contact improvisation, yoga, capoeira and tai chi. Since 1994 he has collaborated closely with lighting designer Michael Hulls, evolving a language where movement and light are intimately connected and the meeting point becomes a new language in itself.
He formed Russell Maliphant Company in 1996 and has also worked with renowned companies and artists including Sylvie Guillem, Robert Lepage, Isaac Julian, Balletboyz and Lyon Opera Ballet. In 2002 he received the Time Out Live award for outstanding collaboration for his work Sheer and in 2003 received a South Bank Show dance award for the piece Choice. At the end of that year he created Broken Fall for Sylvie Guillem and Balletboyz which premiered at the Royal Opera House and received an Olivier award for best new dance production.
Broken Fall was restaged in 2004 as part of the programme Rise and Fall, containing three of Maliphant’s works, and received the Critics’ Circle National Dance award for best modern choreography. Rise and Fall toured for two years and in 2005 Sylvie Guillem invited Maliphant to create an evening of work for them both, culminating in the duet PUSH. This premiered at Sadler’s Wells and received a South Bank Show award and an Olivier award in 2006. PUSH has since toured throughout the world and continues to do so. Its creation was followed by two artistically diverse collaborations: Cast No Shadow with visual artist Isaac Julien, and Eonnagata which was created and performed with theatre director Robert Lepage and Sylvie Guillem.
In 2009 Maliphant created part one of Afterlight for In the Spirit of Diaghilev, Sadler’s Wells’ celebration of Les Ballets Russes. This received the Critics’ Circle National Dance award for best modern choreography in 2010 and was also nominated for an Olivier award. Parts two and three of Afterlight followed and toured as a full evening together with part one. The Rodin Project opened at Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris at the end of January 2012 and was adapted for film, in a collaboration with the directors Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones, and re-titled Erebus.
Maliphant created Fallen for the BalletBoyz winning the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Modern Choreography 2013 and Second Breath for English National Ballet in 2014 as part of the Lest We Forget programme. His Company evenings, continued 2013- 2017 with Still Current and Conceal/Reveal and Maliphant curated and performed in maliphantworks 1 and 2 at The Print Room 2017 & 2018.
In 2011, Maliphant was awarded an honorary doctorate of arts from Plymouth University. Russell Maliphant became an Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells in 2005.
Critics’ Circle National Dance Award
Award - Modern Choreography Fallen
Critics’ Circle National Dance Award
Modern Choreography Afterlight (Part 1) for In the Spirit of Diaghilev
Olivier Award nomination
Modern Choreography Afterlight (Part 1) for In the Spirit of Diaghilev
South Bank Show Award
Push
Olivier Award
Push
Time Out Live Awards
Outstanding Collaboration - Sheer
South Bank Show Award
Choice
Olivier Award
Best New Dance - Broken Fall Royal Opera House
Critic’s Circle
National Dance Award - Broken Fall Best Modern Choreography
Honorary Doctorate of Arts
Plymouth University
2022
Vortex
2020
A Christmas Carol
The Space Between
Film One
Film Two
2019
Silent Lines
The Thread
2018
maliphantworks2 (Duet & Other)
2013
Still
Traces
2012
Cut
The Rodin Project
Kairos
A Holding Space
2011
Erebus
2010
Afterlight (Parts 2 & 3)
2009
Afterlight (Part One)
2007
Small Boats/ True North
2006
Flux
2005
Push
Transmission
2003
Two X Three
Choice
2002
One Part II
Stream
2001
Two X Two
Sheer
Knot
1998
Liquid Reflex
One
Critical Mass
1997
Two
Decoy Landscape
1996
Shift
Unspoken
1995
Recoil
Paradigm
1994
Corpus Antagonus
1991
Evolving Paradigm
Relative Shift
COMMISSIONS
2015
Here and After
Conceal | Reveal
2014
Spiral Pass
Second Breath
Still Current
2013
Fallen
2009
Eonnagata
A Holding Place
2007
Small Boats/ True North
2006
Flux
2005
Solo
2003
Broken Fall
2002
Torsion
COMMERCIALS
Sagami Original
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Audi
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