Russell Maliphant is credited as the choreographer for all of his company's works, yet the effect of his dance on stage is impossible to separate from the magic worked by his lighting designer, Michael Hulls. In Two, the solo piece that opens Maliphant's latest programme, Dana Fouras stands in a glowing square. As she angles her body through the slow choreography of the prologue, light glances off the surfaces of her back, limbs and face, like some antique sculptural chiaroscuro. The exaggeratedly three-dimensional effect is compelling, making her body mysterious and dense. But as Fouras's movements get faster and faster, the alchemy of speed and light seems to dissolve the molecules of her flesh, so that her arms become fierce, airy light-sabres whirling round her head.
In Knot, a duet for Maliphant and Yuval Pick, the chequering of gold light and shadow complicates and deepens the layering effect of the two men's bodies. Sheer, which is an extended duet for Maliphant and Fouras, acquires a dramatically different quality as Hulls enlarges the stage with blocks of light that seem to slide down walls and across the floor. Horizons open as the two dancers voyage emotionally and physically through the expanding space.
Hulls's lighting designs create their own narrative, but they don't diminish the intensity of Maliphant's choreography, which looks more assured in this programme than ever before. His trademark combination of classical definition and fluid improvisation generates a mesmerisingly eloquent range of movement, and finds a dance rhythm that is both formally musical and touchingly intimate. Sheer, for instance, scales the poised heights and flaring lines of a virtuoso pas de deux, yet the dancers respond to each other's moves with such intent and seemingly spontaneous detail that the piece feels like a private conversation.
Maliphant's musical choices are excellent. Sarah Sarhandi's whispering collage intensifies the bond between the two dancers in Sheer, and when you listen to the percussive blocks of sound in Matteo Fargion's score for Knot, it's almost as if the squared patterns of Hull's lighting have been translated into music. But Maliphant is even luckier in his dancers. While he himself gains in performing stature with every show, Fouras and Pick are almost his equals in subtlety and power. This programme is a blueprint for collaboration - all of its contributions are so equal and necessary, the joins between them don't show.
· Russell Maliphant Dance Company is at the Arnolfini, Bristol (0117-929 9191), on Saturday
