My Chosen Practitioner

My Chosen Practitioner

In this blog, I will confer about my chosen choreographer, Russell Maliphant. 

Maliphant is a British choreographer who trained at the Royal Ballet School leading to graduate at Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. As a performer, he worked with various companies such as Michael Clark Company, DV8 Physical Theatre but decided, in 1996, to form the 'Russell Maliphant Company' to where they have collaborated with Sylvie Guillem, Balletboyz and Lyon Opera Ballet.

After further research into my chosen practitioner, I discovered his company website where it goes into depth of Maliphant's "ongoing curiosity and drive to explore human movement and its aesthetic potential" (Measuring range and quality of movement — Russell Maliphant Dance Company, 2021). With this in mind, his passion for human movement compliments my stimulus with my idea of human movement based off the statue 'Venus de Milo'. 

  

  I have yet to watch Maliphant's work in a live performance but have viewed small clips of his piece's such as 'Afterlife', 'Critical Mass' and 'Still'. Based of this, I have got a set idea of what his movement styles are and created notes from what I saw with my own eye; lots of spinal range of motions including roll downs and spinal twists, side bends which continues on with the idea of spinal motion and lots of movement with the upper half of the body but mainly the shoulder range of motion.

  As for resources, continuing with looking into his company website and watching his pieces, I thought it would be interesting to look into reviews from his pieces as well as any interviews I can find where he discusses further about his choreographic process, movement style e.t.c.

 

  However, from what I have gathered so far, the link between Maliphant's interest in the human movement can inspire me when it comes to creating movement as it links to my chosen stimulus which will make the creative process more productive as I can always refer back to my practitioner for innovation.

Russell Maliphant Dance Company. 2021. Measuring range and quality of movement — Russell Maliphant Dance Company. [online] Available at: <https://www.russellmaliphantdancecompany.com/researchprogramme/encoreeastaestheticperformance> [Accessed 26 October 2021].