By Rebecca Martin.

Alice Topp first pulled on her dance shoes in the town of Bendigo at the age of 4.  She relocated to Melbourne to study dance full time, first at the Victorian College of the Arts, then Leanne Rutherford’s Ballet Theatre of Victoria.  Alice then made the leap over the Tasman to join the Royal New Zealand Ballet before settling in at her current home at The Australian Ballet where she is a corps de ballet member and emerging choreographer.

For the past two years, Alice has been a prominent choreographer in The Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque seasons, with her first piece “Trace” being hailed by critics and dance lovers.  The piece was so successful that it was performed again outside of the Bodytorque program. 

Alice took time out of her demanding schedule to chat to Dance Informa about life on the road and life as a dancer.

Was Bodytorque your first foray into choreography? 
Yes, it was my first experiment with choreography. I’d never considered choreography previously until the 2010 Bodytorque season.

How did you find being on the other side of the creative process?
I loved it! There are so many different elements to consider and explore being on the other side. As a dancer, I’m used to taking directions and delivering the material but as a choreographer, you have control over your vision for the piece, the quality of movement, the choice of music, the lighting, set designs, video projections, props, costumes, dancers…. It can be rather overwhelming, but what I love about it is that there are limitless possibilities to explore your ideas. Collaboration is one of my favourite ways of creating and I love being surrounded by a team of talented artists each contributing their own unique flavour and shaping the work as we grow together on the journey of the piece.

Alice Topp, photo by Tim Richardson

How much of the year do you spend on tour with The Australian Ballet? 
We spend roughly five to six months a year on tour. Four months are spent in Sydney with yearly trips to Adelaide and Brisbane. There’s often an overseas tour also.

What is it like to tour with a professional Company?
It’s both exhausting and exhilarating!

Touring with a professional dance company means fulfilling a lifelong dream and having the opportunity to perform in some of the world’s most beautiful theatres. It means doing what I love on the national and world stage, working with the industry’s most amazing artists, choreographers, orchestras, production teams, technical staff and designers.

At The Australian Ballet we’re incredibly well looked after. Our medical team comes with us on tour and we have access to all dance maintenance equipment and facilities. We also have an amazing group of company managers sorting out our flights, accommodation and ticketing and a fantastic team of people organising our media commitments, sponsor related functions and anything in between!

As touring means performing and rehearsing six days a week, we often spend our Sunday sleeping and in recovery. As tiring as it is though, performing to a wide range of appreciative audiences means that it’s usually an incredibly rewarding experience.

Do you have any rituals or items you can’t travel without?
No rituals, but my tour mascot is usually my cat! Most tours he travels with me, otherwise he visits his ‘country retreat’ in Bendigo where my parents look after him.

What is the best part of touring?
I would say the change of scenery and the challenge. As we spend so much time interstate, Sydney has become rather a second home, so the familiarity, weather change and the shift into the Opera House is always welcomed. The best part of all touring though would have to be the international tours which are always a highlight for the sights, culture, history, hype and overall sensory experience.

What is the worst part of touring?
Packing and missing your own bed.

What advice would you give to fellow touring performers? 
For long tours – be mentally flexible. Don’t pack too much because you always come home with more and no-one likes airport excess luggage taxes. Try to limit everyday takeout, as convenient as it is when you’re exhausted, because good nutrition aids your recovery process and prevents you getting run-down and sick. Invest in a multivitamin. Never underestimate the value of a good night’s sleep. Try to maintain a balance. It’s important to maintain other interests to help keep perspective, keep yourself grounded and not let work become all-consuming. This will also mean that you have more creative energy to put back into your dancing. Pack a good book. Always have your iPod handy.

For overseas tours, make the most of every moment both inside and outside the theatre, because you never know when you’ll return and you don’t want to just see the inside of the auditorium.

What has been your favourite experience on tour (on stage or off)?
The most outstanding moment thus far would be the standing ovation we received in Paris at The Chatelet Theatre in 2008 in a joint tour with Bangarra Dance Theatre. The buzz was incredible!

Where would you most like to perform?
Palais Garnier, the Paris Opera.

Favourite roles danced? 
Wayne McGregor’s Dyad 1929 and Stanton Welch’s Divergence.

Role you would most like to perform?
Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain pas de deux.

What are you looking forward to in The Australian Ballet’s 50th Anniversary year? 
The Infinity program, which is a triple bill of works by Graeme Murphy, Stephen Page and Gideon Obarzanek.

The Australian Ballet

Sydney Theatre
May 2010

By Dolce Fisher

This year’s theme for Bodytorque was ‘Muses’, a subject interpreted differently by each budding choreographer. The audience was treated to a smorgasbord of different dance styles, with displays of strong classical ballet, modern and contemporary dance.

Tristan and Isolde by Daniel Gaudiello was classic in style.  The choreography was very intricate and extremely demanding on the dancers, highlighting their strong technical abilities. Gaudiello definitely gave the audience a glimpse of his vision for the story as a full-length work.

Vivienne Wong gave us Touch Transfer. The work brought Wong’s inspiration of  ‘being lost in the stroke of a brush’ to life in movement. A simple, yet defined, choreographic concept, it was a beautiful work.  Her thought process involved much more than just the movement. The backdrop contained much detail of the actual choreography. A colour representing each dancer and the pattern of the brush strokes became a painting capturing the shape of the dancers’ movements.

Contour by Lisa Wilson, guest choreographer and current recipient of the Hephzibah Tintner Foundation Choreographic Fellow, showed a defined maturity and was more contemporary in style.  Dancer Dana Stephenson stood out in Wilson’s choreography and sat very comfortably in the movement style. The work felt like it needed to be performed in bare feet to really delve into the fluidity of the contemporary movements.

Alice Topp, a company member who is becoming very comfortable with switching hats to choreographer, presented Scope. This work was the highlight of the program, danced by talented Chengwu Guo, Natasha Kusen and Karen Nanasca. The trio was cast perfectly, dancing like they shared a deep understanding of one another. The work incorporated projected pictures of each of the dancers onto three individual cycloramas. With inspiration drawn from a photographic exhibition and the idea of the human body as a vessel for our actual being, the work had a peaceful spirituality about it. Scope was captivating and just beautiful to watch.

Closing the show was a work by Kevin Jackson discussing a relationship between a mother and her son. Expressed through the eyes of a mother as her son comes of age, it was a lovely portrayal of the mother/son relationship. The costuming seemed too minimal and distracting at times. Amy Harris showed immense use of extension with the choreography highlighting her amazing line. At times some movements seemed disconnected to other portions of the choreography and almost out of place, but the piece displayed some lovely partnering work.

Bodytorque is a wonderful environment for these young dancers to explore their creative talent and is nurturing the next generation of choreographers whilst challenging and delighting Sydney audiences every year. If only these new works could tour the country and been seen by other cities.

Photo: Dana Stephensen and Brett Simon. Photo by Paul Empson

Sydney Theatre
May 2010

By Rebecca Martin.

This year, The Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque season wove fashion into its theme, and brought to light its bond with ballet.  Consisting of new pieces created and performed by the company’s own dancers (with the occasional outsider brought in), each choreographer collaborated with young designers to create new works that focused as much on the costumes as the dancing.  The Sydney Theatre was the perfect venue for a season such as this, because it is modern and stylish as well as suitably intimate, so no nuance of choreography or design went unnoticed by the audience.

Fold, by Principal dancer Robert Curran opened the programme with the stark stage inhabited only by a percussionist at a drum kit and coryphée Stephanie Williams.  Williams performed a well controlled solo before being joined by Jarryd Madden for a fluid pas de deux.  Curran’s choreography was classical and elegant, and set to the sole sounds of the percussionist who remained onstage throughout the piece.   Amy Harris was a standout, with exquisite line and control and a maturity and presence that was impossible to ignore.  She was lifted, folded, and unfolded by the other dancers and brought great breadth to the piece. 

Daniel Gaudiello’s second Bodytorque outing as a choreographer (he created his first work in 2009) was South of Eden, a much darker piece than Fold.  The stage was darkly lit, with oversized frames suspended from the ceiling, as well as a rope, conjuring images of a dungeon or seedy night spot.  The soundtrack of heavy breathing lent a sinister air to the piece, but despite the dark elements, the choreography did not become harsh or angular.  Soloist Juliet Burnett was clad in suspender tights and a bondage-style mask but spun on the rope with a lightness that belied her external appearance.  What was great about this piece was Gaudiello’s willingness to take risks.  It was edgy with daring lifts, confronting costumes, haunting music, and a difficult topic of female escorts. 

The only female choreographer in the programme was Alice Topp, and Trace was her first foray into creating for Bodytorque.  Trace set out to explore the relationship between dance and design, with the motivation coming from the fabrics themselves. Topp explored the role of costume not only as a decoration but as something of functional value.  Often with first time choreographers, the work can have clunky moments where transitions look awkward, the steps lack cohesiveness with music and ideas can go unrealised.  Topp’s piece had none of these elements, but instead appeared as a vision of sheer perfection.  The choreography was seamless, and it flowed out of the music.  It was breathtaking to watch.  The two dancers wore flesh coloured costumes that were barely more than underwear, but extra pieces of fabric were stretched, twisted and removed, allowing for an entirely new choreographic vocabulary to be created.  There were moments where the movements seemed to suspend in the air as though time and space had been altered.  Topp is certainly a choreographer to watch.

Bodytorque again provided an excellent platform for new works by Australian dancers.  I look forward to next year’s instalment.

Photo: Birthday Suit ‘Bodytorque 2010′ photo Branco Gaica.