Russell Maliphant, Silent Lines, Sadler's Wells

Russell Maliphant’s unique choreography – a slow, dreamy distillation of Western and Eastern styles of movement – has delighted and mesmerised audiences over many years and won him a raft of awards, including two Oliviers.

The latest accolade came last February, when the Russell Maliphant Dance Company won the National Dance Award for Best Independent Dance Company.

Maliphant's new work, Silent Lines, has been engaged in an extensive UK tour since April, and will reach Sadler’s Wells, which co-commissioned it and where Russell Maliphant is an Associate Artist, mid-October.

Well know for his long-standing collaboration with the lighting designer Michael Hulls, this time Russell Maliphant has chosen to work with the Greek video and light artist Panagiotis Tomaras.

Together Maliphant and Tomaras use a world of animated light as the set for an exploration of the endless web of connections we, as human beings, encompass and embody.

As in practically all of Russell Maliphant’s work, abstract flowing movement is his focus. His initial training at the Royal Ballet School has been enlarged and enriched by his study of Rolfing, which focuses on manipulating the body’s connective tissue through massage, and Oriental disciplines such as yoga and Tai Ch’i.

With its slow, hypnotic, seamless stretches and turns, Silent Lines is immediately recognisable as a Russell Maliphant work; and yet, in its unique blend of dance and technical innovation, it’s very new.

Russell Maliphant has created Silent Lines with a new group of five dancers, and his company has taken up residence at DanceEast in Ipswich. He has worked with his dancers on what he calls “sensing the body,” ie, becoming aware of all the processes going on inside your body, such as pulsing and pumping blood.

Over a long career, 57-year-old Russell Maliphant, who still dances, has choreographed work for many different companies, including BalletBoyz and English National Ballet, and individual dancers, such as the French ballerina Sylvie Guillem, the Royal Ballet’s Russian superstar Natalia Osipova, and the Italian ballerina Alessandra Ferri. All relished the challenge of working with him.

Maliphant’s previous show at Sadler’s Wells was The Thread, in which he collaborated with the Greek composer Vangelis and sought links between his own movement and that of Greek folk dance, not entirely successfully, it has to be said.

In Silent Lines Maliphant is back on more introspective territory, a rather more fertile ground for his creativity.

Post-show talk:Friday 18 October Free to same performance ticket holders.

Russell Maliphant in conversation with Alistair Spalding.