Set in motion
A long-time lead dancer in the Australian Ballet, Alice Topp’s talent as a choreographer and costume designer is now taking stage centre. By Jane Albert.
You wouldn’t know it to watch her on stage at the Sydney Opera House, in her pale pink pointe shoes, tights and tutu, but ballerina Alice Topp has a tattoo of a tiny bluebird on her right foot. Many years ago, a fracture in that foot resulted in her losing her contract with Royal New Zealand Ballet, a loss that led to a series of hurdles she fought hard to overcome. Overcome them she did, ultimately landing a coveted position at the Australian Ballet, where she has enjoyed a successful 11-year career dancing in Australia and abroad in productions by some of the world’s most respected choreographers. The bluebird travels with her, a constant reminder that the cracks in our past make us stronger and shape who we become.
It is a mantra that guides her and one that has inspired her greatest challenge to date. A budding choreographer, Topp is preparing for the international debut of her first mainstage commissioned by the Australian Ballet. Titled Aurum (Latin for ‘gold’), it is a contemporary piece for 12 dancers that pays homage to kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold or silver lacquer to illuminate, rather than disguise the fractures, often creating an object more beautiful than its original.
What makes Aurum particularly compelling is that it’s the first work in 15 years to be choreographed by a female member of the Australian Ballet. The last was Meryl Tankard’s Wild Swans in 2003. Rather than being intimidated, Topp is facing the challenge with grace and determination. “I feel very excited to be able to stand up and say it’s something I think does need to change,” she says. “But I want my work to be known for being strong because the work is good, not because I’m female.”
Topp is a breath of fresh air, a lively and engaging conversationalist whose interests and ideas stem from fashion, music, books, art to the AFL and cricket, sports she follows with her father. Her circle of friends takes in designer Toni Maticevski and musician Ben Folds (whose music video Capable of Anything she choreographed in 2017), while her taste in music ranges from jazz to punk and rock; the poems of Patti Smith are on her bedside table. But throughout her life ballet has remained a constant.
Topp grew up in the Victorian town of Bendigo and began dancing at the age of two, a student at her mother’s small dance school. By four she drifted into gymnastics, netball and horse-riding, a true country girl, but biennial trips to see the Australian Ballet School’s Dancers Company perform Graeme Murphy’s Nutcracker or Stephen Baynes’s 1914 ensured ballet was never far away, and at eight she began dancing again. When she was offered a spot at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School, she begged her parents to let her go, leaving home for Melbourne aged 13, where she lived in the school’s hostel. It was a considerable sacrifice for her schoolteacher father and retail-worker mother and, as it turned out, a tough year for Topp herself, who suffered overwhelming homesickness. “It made me realise how much I loved dance, if I was willing to endure how horrible I felt most of the time,” she says, laughing.
She went on to full-time classical training at Ballet Theatre of Victoria, opting for a four-hour daily commute to Bendigo and studying by correspondence; before landing a position at Royal New Zealand Ballet. When her contract wasn’t renewed, she travelled overseas and endured 15 unsuccessful auditions for dance companies – “it was like a slaughterhouse, so confronting, an absolute shock” – before returning to Australia and finally gaining a position with the Australian Ballet in 2007. Choreographing her own steps never occurred to her until the company’s music director Nicolette Fraillon suggested she consider it, after watching her rehearse Divergence, a unique ballet that allows for individual expression.
Fraillon knew what she was doing. Since then Topp has choreographed four successful works for the Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque program of experimental choreography. Her most successful, Little Atlas, received a second outing as part of the company’s Symphony in C program in 2016. Motivated by a cataclysmic illness that left her mother with severe memory loss, it was praised for its ability to depict complex, interesting and characterful relationships. It is a topic Topp returns to time and again.
“A lot of my work is emotionally fuelled,” she says. “You want people leaving the theatre feeling, thinking, questioning.” Encouraged by previous collaborations with Maticevski, and fashion designers Georgia Lazzaro and Crystal Dunn, she is designing the costumes herself and again using the music of Italian composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi, performed live. Topp says it is a great privilege creating for her fellow dancers, friends she has grown up with and whose extraordinary artistry and skill she hopes Aurum will emphasise.
Topp’s dream is to move from being a dancer-choreographer to a fulltime choreographer, but she is aware of the risks, particularly in a country where successful female choreographers are scarce.
“Without putting pressure on myself or the company, I have spoken briefly with artistic director David McAllister about becoming the first female resident choreographer. Personally, I think it’s time. This is the company where I discovered this path and I’ve very passionate about creating on this company. We have such incredible dancers and artists.” Aurum will be performed as part of the Australian Ballet’s triple bill Verve at the Arts Centre Melbourne, June 21– 30. Go to www.australianballet.com.au.
“YOU WANT PEOPLE LEAVING THE THEATRE FEELING, THINKING, QUESTIONING”