Australian ballet choreographer Alice Topp got an unusual lucky break: After an injury and a break in her dancing career, she was offered the opportunity to choreograph, which was the start of a new stellar creative career.  Additionally, she co-founded a huge choreographic undertaking – Project Animo – aiming to bring together a collective of independent, multidisciplinary, intergenerational artistic voices and talent from across Australia’s dance landscape. Selected collaborators converse and develop new work, challenge and expand their artistic boundaries, and breathe new life into Australian dance for audiences nationwide. 

ICONS: How and when did you start dancing?

Alice Topp: I started dancing when I was four. I returned to it when I was 8, and I haven’t stopped since, so 31 years. I started dancing in Bendigo in Country Victoria, where I grew up, and then full-time when I was 12. From then on, I was in Melbourne.

ICONS: What did you gain from the Royal New Zealand Ballet?

AT: It was my first professional job, and I just turned 19. I was there for almost three years, and it was a formative time for me to establish my creative voice as a professional. I was still so young, and the New Zealand Ballet, then without a ranking system, allowed me to perform a great variety of repertoire and also featured roles, gaining invaluable performance experience. We were not even 30 dancers, so we were busy with every production.

New Zealand is a small country, but we toured extensively in the north and south islands and internationally, which really opened my eyes. I felt very supported and nurtured within that bubble. The New Zealand experience also informed my choreographic development because it was in a company where my individuality was celebrated and supported. I was able to take risks and grow in an environment where I felt safe. I was lucky to have incredible peers to look up to and learn from who mentored the young company members. 

ICONS: How was your artistic experience as a dancer with The Australian Ballet?

AT: I danced for 14 years with the Australian Ballet, and it was the place where my choreographic voice was formed. I had never considered choreographing until I was given that opportunity and platform to experiment, but I was encouraged to do so. It wouldn’t have been an idea I’d arrive at alone. Fortunately, I had mentors and staff who saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.

Before I started choreographing, I worked with many great choreographers in a very close space. Having that access to masters of the craft, I observed their creative processes and approach to tasking, developing vocabulary, staging, and collaboration. That, for me, was soul food and an extraordinary, invaluable experience. I felt like a thirsty sponge trying to absorb everything in such a vibrant, electric environment. 

All these artistic stimulations and creative ideas were fertile ground for my growth and development as a choreographer. Still, it also gave me the most incredible and exceptional experiences as a dancer.

ICONS: What brought you to start choreographing?

AT: Due to an injury, I couldn’t dance for 12 months and lost my job at the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Before I joined the Australian Ballet, I was working in hospitality and paying for dance classes again. I wasn’t even sure if I was ever going to find a way back into the dance world again, and I was just 22. Fortunately, The Australian Ballet offered me a home as a company member, and it was 3 years later, that opportunity presented itself in the choreographic season at the Australian Ballet. It had been a long time between female choreographers, and one female who was programmed went on maternity leave.

The artistic director back then, David McAllister, and the musical director, Nicolette Fraillion encouraged me to take the risk and "have a go" because they thought I could be good at this. When I got offered this opportunity to choreograph, I thought it would be criminal to give up a chance when it had been handed to me on a plate. I knew so many people were fighting for this exact chance, so I was very grateful to be invited to do it.

My first creation, Trace, was created collaboratively with a couple of peers, an incredible composer and costume designer, and an illustrator for projections, and it was a very alchemic and harmonious process. I am so glad I gave it a chance and took some risks as it was the most fulfilling, rewarding experience I have ever had.

ICONS: How would you define your choreographic approach?

AT: I would describe it as really collaborative. I like to think I design the work on the dancers’ bodies and with their voices and palette of colors. I focus on their individual qualities, strengths, and skills and create with the ensemble as a collective expression. I love to have the opportunity to incorporate the dancers’ ideas, injection of expression, and opinions into my work.

I like to focus on creating a vocabulary and unique dialogue with the cast dancers and the creative team, the composer, the set designer, the light designer, and the costume designer and collaborate. I also focus on making work the dancers feel confident and comfortable doing.

My approach is to give the dancers a sense of ownership. I share with them the concept of the choreography and together we discuss how they relate to it and connect with it. My creative process is more of a conversation and less of me telling them what to do and directing them.

My choreographic objective is to reach an exchange of creative energy and physical thinking between all the participants in the project. This includes originality in spoken language, body language, and movement language. My goal is to bring ideas to life and give the performers the opportunity to bring their own personal experiences, perspectives, and creativity into the space.

ICONS: Do you have any specific interests or subjects you tackle through choreography?

AT: My work is greatly fueled by stories relating to the human condition. My inspiration comes from real humans and their stories, whether they are experiences with fear, grief, depression, anxiety or those of happiness, celebration, and fulfillment. Often it is propelled by stories of adversity, obstacles, challenges or leaning into uncomfortabilities and the rewards of overcoming such hardships and traumas.

For instance, one of my works, Aurum, was inspired by the Japanese art of Kintsugi, a practice based on their philosophy of repairing cracked ceramics with golden metallic lacquer. Repairing with gold illuminates the fractures rather than disguising them, making the objects more beautiful than their original form. I apply that to humans because often we see our imperfections are blemishes on our character.

I am interested in celebrating our flaws and perceived imperfections and embracing authenticity, so I have created works based on that theme.

ICONS: You are the co-founder and creative director of Project Animo – could you tell us about it?

AT: Project Animo is a project-based creative company. We provide the studios, the space, and the venues and then put on performances celebrating an incredibly diverse mix of artists.

Every season, we gather a group of choreographers and dancers and approach emerging composers and designers in which we facilitate a collaboration. It’s a very open and harmonious process and freelance-based. The project started by offering a meeting space where multigenerational, multidisciplinary artists and dancers could come together to practice their art form, learn from each other, grow, and collaborate on a new project.

We had dancers who had retired for various reasons at whatever age. Participating artists ranged in their early 20’s to late 50’s . Some stopped dancing because of the relentless main-stage schedule and demands on their bodies or because touring became too difficult with partners and families.

So far, the experience has been fascinating and fruitful because all the dancers we gather come from different dance backgrounds and dialogues. Most of the artists have never worked together, and this amalgamation of voices challenges each individual to expand their minds and bodies . Artists from different disciplines have never collaborated with the artists we assembled in every cohort. In summary, there is a lot of newness, curiosity, and freshness!

Our primary focus is that each new work is original in every sense of the word and that we provide a platform for all genres and ages to cross-pollinate and develop new ideas. We also offer a platform for designers and composers to work together. This is exciting, and we look forward to starting a new season next year. We have been generating a lot of interest nationally and internationally.

ICONS: What are your plans for the near future?

AT: I am creating a new work for the Royal New Zealand Ballet next year that premieres on the first of August. I have a couple of weeks there at the beginning of the year to re-stage a piece, Clay, for the National Tour before returning in July to create High Tide for their contemporary triple-bill season, Solace. I am also putting work together with Jon Buswell, co-founder of Project Animo, and we are working jointly on the new season.

We hope the new project will be completed at the end of next year. We are currently curating that program, thinking about the choreographers and the artists that will be involved. And then, I have a few other projects in 2025 and 2026 coming in, so I will also start working on those concepts with the creative team.

In summary, I expect many creative conversations on the horizon, but that's the point of work: Never stop learning! We are constantly evolving. 

Biography of Alice Topp:

After two years of dancing with the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB), Alice joined The Australian Ballet as a dancer in 2007, where her choreographic identity first emerged. Her first work, Trace, was created for The Australian Ballet’s (TAB) 2010 season of its choreographic showcase ‘Bodytorque’. Alice created three more works for Bodytorque, refining her craft and gaining the attention of critics and company directors alike. In 2016, she choreographed the critically acclaimed work Little Atlas before creating her first main-stage one-act work Aurum, which was created with the support of a Rudolf Nureyev Prize for New Dance. It went on to its international debut the following year at New York’s leading contemporary dance venue, The Joyce Theater.

Alice was appointed one of TAB’s Resident Choreographers in 2018. She spent a month with Studio Wayne McGregor the following year creating a piece for The Grange Festival, Clay, which later formed a larger work, Logos, for TAB’s 2020 ‘Volt’ program. Alice has been nominated for a Green Room Award and three Australian Dance Awards. In 2019, Aurum saw Alice and her creative team win the Helpmann Award for Best Ballet and a nomination for an Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography. Most recently, Alice premiered an hour-long commission to celebrate The Australian Ballet’s 60th Anniversary, Paragon, alongside creating new works for the Singapore Ballet and West Australian Ballet. LINK: https://www.projectanimo.com.au/

Sample Video Trailers:

Photography:

Photography © Ivana Martyn-Zyznikow – photo portrait of Alie Topp

Photography © Jeff Busby, Ross Brown, Chris Rodgers-Wilson, Daniel Bould, Camilla Greenwell, Stephen A'Count, Kate Lonhley, Taylor Ferne-Morris, Juan Carlos-Osma. 

DANCE ICONS, INC. TEAM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Interviewer: Veronica Posth

Executive Content Editor: Camilla Acquista

Executive Assistant: Charles Scheland

Executive Director: Vladimir Angelov

Dance ICONS, Inc., November 2023 © All rights reserved.