Russell Maliphant performed with DV8 Physical Theatre, Michael Clark Company, Rosemary Butcher and Laurie Booth – with whom he was awarded a Time Out Live award for ‘raising improvisational dance to new heights' in 1991.
He formed Russell Maliphant Dance Company in 1996 and has also worked with renowned companies and artists including Sylvie Guillem, Robert Lepage, Isaac Julien, BalletBoyz, English National Ballet, Bayerisches Staatsballett and Lyon Opera Ballet.
At the end of that year he created Broken Fall for Sylvie Guillem and BalletBoyz (Michael Nunn, William Trevitt) 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 a programme titled Rise and Fall, consisting of three 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 toured throughout the world until 2014. Its creation was followed by two artistically diverse collaborations: Cast No Shadow with visual artist Isaac Julien, and Eonnagata which was created and performed alongside theatre director Robert Lepage and Sylvie Guillem, costumes designed by Alexander McQueen.
Rise and Fall – Sylvie Guillem, Michael Nunn, William Trevitt, Russell Maliphant
Push – Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant. Tokyo 2005
Push – Julie Guibert and Alexander Varona
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 also 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 in 2013. Second Breath was created for English National Ballet in 2014, as part of ENB's Lest We Forget program. In the same year Maliphant created Spiral Pass for Bayerisches Staatsballett.
In 2019 he created Silent Lines for RMDC which toured up until the beginning of the pandemic.