Silent Lines
Barbican London

TRANCE-LIKE, five dancers sway to Dana Fouras’s eerie electronic music on the darkened stage at the opening of Russell Maliphant Company’s Silent Lines as their fluid movements merge with Panagiotis Tomaras’s rippling animations of white, amoeba-like shapes outlined in black.

Immediately mesmerising, the ever-changing atmospheres during this hour-long dance are so immersive that the concentration never strays.

Choreographer Russell Maliphant’s influences range from breakdancing to Chopin and Rothko and he has studied anatomy, physiology and biomechanics in his quest to understand the dynamics of the human body.

In his new work, a collaboration with lighting designers and dancers, he goes beyond the external structure of the body to the invisible connective tissue which encases muscles and internal organs.

Silent Lines’ dominant motifs are curvilinear and organic. As the pace of the music flips from aggressive electronic grinds and thuds to limpid classical violin or piano solos, the dancers move gently and fluidly as underwater seaweed or whirl, swirl, bend and leap fast as lightning, creating rapid changes of mood.

Interacting seamlessly with the music and lighting, they magically disappear into and reappear from the dark void, in ever-changing configurations which range from solos to quintets as they meet, then part.

Strong, isolated beams pick out the musculature of yearning outstretched arms raised high, while gentler lighting isolates tiny muscular movements, as when the inimitable Grace Jabbari suddenly appears poised like an ancient Greek statue and slowly articulates a single shoulder, then very gradually turns her head to face the audience.

The graceful giant Moronfoluwa Odimayo’s solid presence anchors the other dancers with an impressive, noble grace as the ending echoes the beginning. All five dancers join hands and glide gracefully in a gentle, congenial circle to quiet electronic sounds in an unforgettable affirmation of the wonder and potential of the human body and of human collective endeavour.

One of the greats of modern dance, Maliphant is always inventive and never disappoints. Silent Lines is another superb work whose emotive abstractions rival those of the finest abstract painters.