The Russell Maliphant Dance Company was founded in 1996 and has sought to explore a diverse range of techniques including classical ballet, contact improvisation, yoga, capoeira and tai chi. 

The company has toured extensively both nationally and internationally, it was the first western dance company to visit Uzbekistan and it has completed a week long run at the celebrated Harvey Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2007. 

Russell Maliphant trained at the Royal Ballet School and graduated into Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet Company before leaving to pursue a career in independent dance. As a dancer he worked with companies such as DV8 Physical Theatre, Michael Clark & Company, Laurie Booth and Rosemary Butcher and also studied anatomy, physiology, bio-mechanics. He became certified as a practitioner of the Rolfing Method of Structural Integration in 1994 and this has subsequently informed both his teaching and choreographic work.

As he was reading the dancer and choreographer who danced with Diagalev’s Ballet Russes, Vaslav Nijinsky’s biography, Russell Maliphant had the inspiration of what would become AfterLight. During his reading, he was exposed to sketches and paintings made by Nijinsky himself. Those images deeply touched him, regarding the energy of movement which tends to be released by the abstract figurative forms. It’s this same energy that he exposes with help of new technology and lights by Michael Hulls, unveiled for the audience.