Choreographer Alice Topp
Ballet is a deeply traditional art form, but over the past few decades, it has also celebrated modernity with works being developed that reflect our changing world and new voices coming through, like that of acclaimed choreographer Alice Topp.
Alice’s successful career as a ballet dancer with both The Australian Ballet and Royal New Zealand Ballet led her to choreography in 2010 when she was invited to choreograph for The Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque programme.
Over a decade later, her original work Aurum, which she created for the Australian Ballet in 2018, will be making its New Zealand premiere this month as part of the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s season Venus Rising, which features four works all created by female choreographers.
Originally intended to premiere in 2020, RNZB’s programme got somewhat upended by the global pandemic and our nationwide lockdown, suspending the premiere of Aurum until now. Four attempts later, the much-anticipated season of Aurum will finally hit New Zealand stages.
Aurum is inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, which is about finding beauty in the broken. The philosophy treats breakage and repair as part of the history of the object. Creating the work was a poignant time for Alice who shares how it came to be: “It was a really special creative process, a lot got poured into that work. I was going through a bit personally and had some close friends navigating big life changes. When I was developing a concept for Aurum, I stumbled across a quote about finding beauty in the broken and it really resonated with me, reflecting on all of these unforeseen circumstances and devastating, difficult experiences friends were enduring. The quote was coupled with a beautiful picture of Japanese pottery and mentioned kintsugi. I started researching the concept and instantly fell in love with it. Kintsugi is how they repair objects in Japan with gold or metallic lacquer so that it illuminates the fractures rather than disguises them, and by repairing it in such a fashion, the object becomes even more beautiful than it was in its original form. It’s a beautiful transformation. It reminded me of growing up and how we would repair broken objects with clear glue… that was the thing you did. You tried to disguise the breakage and flaw. I really loved this idea of amplifying the breakage and celebrating it, and relating kintsugi to the human condition.”
The concept made Alice think about what her friends were experiencing, things that she’d also experienced, and how we tend to look at our history, stories, battle wounds, and scars as imperfections and flaws.
“We look at them like a blemish on our character in a way and try to conceal these perceived imperfections. It got me thinking ‘wouldn’t it be great if we can look at ourselves like they look at kintsugi – with a sense of transformation and illumination?’ These experiences are life-changing; they’re not something that we should disguise or hide but they make us who we are and have added a whole new layer of feeling and depth. The idea just got under my skin and I thought that’s what this piece is going to be about.”
It’s particularly fitting to be sharing a work about celebrating the beauty in flaws when so much of the media we see and absorb has been airbrushed or filtered to present an idea of perfection. While there’s been more realism coming through in campaigns and social media, there is still a lot out there that presents unattainable goals of perfectionism. What Alice is trying to get across is that beauty lies in the imperfection and the stories that our bodies and brains tell about us.
When it came to creating Aurum, Alice took her concept to acclaimed designer Jon Buswell, a longtime collaborator on set and lighting design. Together they distilled ideas and discuss how they will bring the piece to life on stage. Once they have a visual of the production’s design, they search for music while making sure each element reflects Alice’s concept. For Aurum, they settled on emotionally driven music by Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi. Next, they develop a structure, mapping out the composition of the piece so Alice has a skeleton from which to flesh out in the studio. They work out how best to tell the story, matching the music, sets, and lighting with spatial patterns, duets, solos and group work, designing it so that each element is in harmony with the other. Once she has a loose structure of what she believes is the best way to tell the story, Alice gets in the studio with the dancers and that’s where the action develops.
“It’s a very collaborative process. We begin workshopping and experimenting movement and share ideas in a really safe, open space, where the dancers are equally as vocal in their injection of their artistic voices. We play with ideas and develop them into phrases of movement that become bespoke, as it’s custom-made on the cast. The vocabulary is directly informed by the dancers and their artistic voices. It’s a conversation between the dancers and me and the music and designs. If I had different dancers in front of me at that time, the work would be completely different because it’s curated on the artists I’m collaborating with.”
The award-winning ballet is shaped by kintsugi, the Japanese art of healing
cracks with pure gold – celebrating the beauty of the broken.
Alice doesn’t enter the studio with fixed ideas of what she wants the choreography to specifically be. What evolves is an organic work that also reflects how the dancers respond to each other and their interpretation of the concept.
“They bring to the table their own stories, their own scars, history and imperfections, or perceived imperfections. We’re responding to each other and there’s this beautiful interplay between the concept and each other. People express their stories and where those emotions land in their bodies. Everyone experiences pain, love, grief, and joy in different ways, and for some, it might be expressed in a gesture of the hand, others in a movement of the chest, for someone else an inclination of the head, so it’s a recipe designed on those people in the cast.”
When it came to restaging the work with the RNZB, it evolved again, as while the steps are set to the music, the interpretation is open to each dancer’s unique voice. Alice was excited to watch the RNZB dancers own the work, nurture it, and develop it with their own voices. She’s enjoyed seeing the decisions they made for the steps and how they changed the flavour of the movement. It’s a part of the process that she loves and seeing it performed by new artists adds to her enjoyment of the work, as she sees the piece as a living, breathing piece of art. She doesn’t have a rigidity to her choreography or her process, and for Alice, it’s all about celebrating the individuals performing the work. She wants to bring the best out in everyone and offer them a space on stage where they can be unapologetically honest and true to their own artistic voices.
While she was able to be there in the rehearsal room in January 2020 to introduce and rehearse the work with the RNZB, the show was unable to be performed that May, and an attempt happened later that year in August, with Alice rehearsing from a Melbourne lockdown via Zoom. The company had intended to stage the production this year in March, but it was rescheduled to November to ensure it would be seen by audiences, fourth time lucky!
Alice started dancing at the age of four before undertaking further ballet studies in her teens and becoming a professional dancer. Now in her 30s, she’s had a lifetime of working with choreographers, which has not only influenced her choreography but also helped her develop her own style over the past decade.
“I think directly or indirectly I will have been influenced by having the opportunity to work with masters of the craft and being on the receiving end of that information. Having the opportunity to observe their processes and the way they develop movement will definitely have informed my voice and my process. When I started out, I had no idea what I was doing. I was a complete rookie and I’d never choreographed before, and I never even knew I wanted to. I fell into it as a female colleague withdrew from the company’s choreographic season, Bodytorque, and we hadn’t had a female choreographer in our experimental choreographic season (for The Australian Ballet) for a long time. Our artistic director and musical director approached me and said ‘Would you put on a piece? I know it’s the eleventh hour but you’ve got a weekend to think about it and we think you can do it.’ I came back the next week and said ‘Sure, I’ll have a crack!’ I knew a lot of people that would love to be in that position of having this opportunity. I had friends who were freelance artists who were constantly applying for grants, space, time, and dancers for creative developments, and this opportunity fell into my lap. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, or how to do it, but I’m going to give it a go.’”
The global pandemic and a nationwide lockdown suspended the NZ premiere of Aurum until now.
Alice’s risk paid off, choosing to work with two dancers who were good friends of hers as she developed her first work called Trace, which like all her other work was created collaboratively. It’s a process that she finds deeply rewarding and she credits working with other choreographers as giving her the tools and tips to understand how to develop her own work. Her earlier experiences also showed her how she didn’t want to work, especially when it came to more traditional ballets, as she found it frustrating trying to deliver a set phrase that didn’t work for her body or her skills and didn’t play to her strengths. Finding that way of working limiting and restrictive meant that her own process became about finding ways of moving that were curated to bring the best out in the dancers and play to their strengths.
“Dancer’s professional lives are for such a short time, and there’s a finite period of where you’re at your peak. If you’re always performing works that have been done hundreds of years ago, there’s still beauty in that tradition and in honouring those classics, but I’ve always found the process of having something designed for you and on you as such a gift. You don’t have to fit a template, fill another’s shoes; there’s not that expectation or preconceived idea. You are the muse. That has always been a motivation for me when I have unique artists in front of me because we have a precious moment in time where we get to put steps down with your name on them in the dance history books.”
Ballet choreography has traditionally been a male occupation, but in recent years, more women are taking up choreographic roles, although, they are still very much in the minority, which makes the RNZB’s season of Venus Rising that much more exceptional. Alice has only worked with one female choreographer in her dancing career, which was early on when she danced with the RNZB. When it came to developing her own choreographic style, she wanted it to be in a female voice and one that was emotive and powerful.
“It’s critical that we have more female choreographic voices out there to keep the conversation equal. I’m really grateful that I’ve had the support and the platform to be able to exercise my voice, experiment without pressure, and be supported and nurtured. It’s enabled me to take risks, grow, and develop my vocabulary and artistic voice with each experience. It takes great courage to put yourself out there in the arena where everyone’s a critic. It’s important that everyone’s voice is valued, seen, and heard. We need to learn not to be afraid to take up space and that starts with nurturing, educating, supporting, and providing opportunity.”
While she still values traditional ballets and understands their importance, for Alice, creating original work means sharing stories that are relatable and bring people on an emotional journey that reflects our current environment.
“There’s always a place for the traditional work and they are so popular… they’re of a time and of otherworldly realms, fantastical realms like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, or The Nutcracker. To escape into that fantasy world is wondrous, but what I find inspiring is creating art that reflects the times, connects with people today, and echos our current landscape. I want people to be able to engage with what’s being played out on stage. It’s not just a duet between the dancers; it’s a duet with the audience. The interplay and exchange you share with the audience is magical. You can feel that energy on stage, and if you can invite them into that world you’re creating, I think that can be incredibly powerful. The people on stage in my work aren’t characters, they’re not acting. They’re themselves, they’re humans in a very human story.”
For Alice, it has definitely been prophetic to bring Aurum’s story of celebrating beauty in the broken to the RNZB as it’s where she first became a professional dancer and also where her first contract abruptly ended when she broke her foot and had to return home to Australia. When she arrived in January 2020, it had been 15 years since she had been in Wellington, but she still felt a strong connection to the company she joined just after her 19th birthday and the city that was her home for two-and-a-half formative years.
Alice designed Aurum’s costumes in collaboration with the wardrobe team from The Australian Ballet.
Prior to the lockdowns, the RNZB has toured the country extensively every year as well as overseas tours, and Alice got to know New Zealand well through touring with the company who she describes as a tight-knit little family.
“Returning to New Zealand felt like coming home for me. The familiarity and the nostalgia… it was like putting on an old pair of UGG boots. I used to stroll down these streets… I went there for coffee, and that’s my old house! I revisited all the places I had history and memories with. I have such a strong connection with the country that gifted me with some of the most joyful memories of my time as an artist. They were such formative years. All of those experiences have informed my choreographic voice and permeated my work. Coming back to New Zealand and a company that holds so much of my heart to present this particular work is such a privilege for me. To be able to share this story full of heart, with a country I love, at a time when everyone needs a bit of healing and hope feels like art therapy.”
When audiences take in Alice’s choreographic work, they may not realise that she also had a hand in the costumes, designing Aurum’s costumes in collaboration with the wardrobe team from The Australian Ballet. Having worn many amazing, opulent costumes and wigs to become grand, fantastical characters as a dancer, Alice wanted something more natural for the dancers in her piece and a pared-back look that reflected the concept of the work, celebrated their individual beauty, and highlighted their humanity.
She wanted to emphasise the sculptured forms of the dancers and chose white as it reminded her of porcelain, adding gold to represent the art of kintsugi. The costumes consist of simple pants for the men and a classic blouse with a leotard for women, each featuring gold paint to show the ‘fractures.’ As the choreography is fluid, she wanted the dancers to be able to be comfortable and move freely as themselves.
There’s a lot to consider with dancers’ costumes, not just how they move but also wearability and how they look under the stage lights. It was also important to Alice that the costumes were a marriage of function and aesthetics, making the dancers feel beautiful and special as well as ready and prepared for what they were doing on stage. She wanted them to feel their best and comfortable in their own skin.
“If it was a big extravagant costume, it would be masking their movement, which is incongruent to concept. Opulent, dramatic costumes would act as a disguise, and Aurum is about celebrating your authentic self with all your unique qualities. I didn’t want them to cover their tattoos like we usually do in ballet or put lots of make-up on and false eyelashes. I wanted them to have their fringes out and not pin their hair back with a cake full of gel and hairspray like we might do for a classical piece. It’s about celebrating your authentic self.”
Alice had sketches and designs of where they might paint their gold scars, which forms part of their pre-show preparation. The dancers have the beautiful shared experience of them painting each other before they perform, which has become part of the process, a way of connecting with the cast, and getting into the mindset before the performance. Showcasing their individuality in that way doesn’t happen that often for dancers who are often in prescribed looks that don’t often vary, especially for traditional works.
“As a dancer, I’ve had the privilege of performing the classics like Swan Lake, Giselle, Nutcracker, etc. where you are one of 24 swans and you are meant to look like a flock and be identical and uniformed, so your costumes and styling are all conformed to look the same. But there’s not a lot of scope for individuality and interpretation, so that’s what makes this piece really special. Aurum invites the artists to have their say on what makes them feel human and themselves on stage. It gives them permission to have their own voices be seen and heard, and the dancers at RNZB have such vibrant, generous voices and a thirst for creating… it’s been such a gift to see them make this piece their own.”
Venus Rising opens on 24 November 2022 at St James Theatre in Wellington before touring to Christchurch and Auckland. Dates and ticket information are available on rnzb.org.nz.
Images by Stephen A’Court.