Can't Topp the Feeling

Houston Ballet has announced its vibrant programme for 2025-2026, with luminary contemporary ballet choreographer, Alice Topp, formerly of the Australian Ballet and the Royal New Zealand Ballet as a headliner. Artistic director Stanton Welch who took over the helm of the Houston Ballet in 2003, after a career as a soloist and resident choreographer at the Australian Ballet. His connection with Topp is strong from these shared confluences. As they are planning collaboration once more, for Houston Ballet’s new programme, Fjord Review speaks to Alice Topp about what is brewing for her new works.

Alice Topp. Photograph by Ivana Martyn-Zyznikow

Congratulations, Alice, on your upcoming choreographic residency at the Houston Ballet. What can we expect from this residency?

It’s just wonderful to be invited by Houston Ballet for this body of work and I can tell you some early things that are brewing, but detail will emerge as we go. It will have my signature vocabulary, and it’s about the human condition. As always, the choreography focuses on the stories and journeys of the dancers, and bringing the outside into the theatre.

Is this new work, or preexisting choreography?

It’s completely new, and will premiere with the Houston Ballet. The work is, broadly speaking, inspired by resilience and human courage. It is still in evolution, but essentially I want through this work to be able to bring to life the idea of going through events that have shaped us, but still rising despite the hurt.

This sounds very on brand for you, as so many of your works explore the human condition. Last year, for example, I saw your work “High Tide” with dancers from the Royal New Zealand Ballet. It took “a tender look at the isolating experience of fear.” Interiority and emotion seem to be generative themes in your work.

Yes, I’m always interested in what makes us human. Resilience seems like an important theme right now. I want to explore how we can not be hardened by our experiences, but be hopeful and good humans despite. How do we keep good in our hearts . . . at this time, there are so many things going on in the world, and reasons for people to disassociate and disconnect. I want to explore how we might rise against all odds, instead of turning cold to human connection. There is still good in the world when we choose hope.

Ana Gallardo Lobaina and Branden Reiners in Alice Topp's “High Tide” for the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Photograph by Stephen A'Court

Those themes sound very significant for the moment. I wanted to ask, how do you go about choreography in a way that tells the stories of the individual dancers, in this case at the Houston Ballet?

The dancers I will be working with at Houston Ballet are at a peak in their artistry and physical dialogue, it is a privilege to be able to work with them on choreography, to tease out and mould together. With all dancers I work with, there is a sense of co-ownership in the process; we throw ideas into the mixing pot and come up with a vocabulary, designed for and on them. I love having a concept and not necessarily knowing where it will end, and keeping that creative conversation going, with the dancers in the studio.

I note that your upcoming work will see the continuation of your collaboration with set and lighting designer, Jon Buswell. What do you enjoy about working with Buswell, and what do you think he will bring to the work?

I’m absolutely thrilled to be working with Jon again, this time at the Houston ballet. I’ve worked with him pretty extensively over the past few years, at the Australian Ballet, including “Aurum,” “Logos,” “Paragon,” and more recently for Royal New Zealand Ballet in “High Tide.”

One of the things I love most about working with Jon is the immersive worlds he creates for the choreography. What I love about the worlds that Jon creates is that the dancers have a connection with the world that is unfolding behind them, we work together with the dancers so that they can interact with and be encompassed in the world of the set and lighting. Quite often as a dancer you get on set and it's a different world, after working tirelessly on the choreography, and it can be quite disorienting even. With Jon, we are able to play with truly breathtaking design, such as synthetic rain, gold floor, mirrors and cracks in the set, which really force interaction and use of light that maneuvers on the dancers as they perform.

Kevin Jackson and Robyn Hendricks in “Aurum” by Alice Topp. Photograph by Daniel Boud

How does this collaboration between you and Jon work, in practice? Are you in the studio together some of the time, as opposed to just in technical rehearsals at the end?

Yes. We often work closely together from the beginning. We come up with a concept, we ruminate on it and distill it, find quotes, articles and supporting material. It all takes a while and is a process! We look at music that reflects that concept and he works through movement of the set, then she can start to place the bodies. That way, we already know the overarching structure before I step into the studio with the dancers, and trajectory for the piece and how to land on the purpose, intention and meaning. Going into the studio equipped with this knowledge, we’re able to bring new worlds alive. Along the way, Jon comes into rehearsal to watch the dancers’ movement, look at the floor plan and talk through colour plans for the costumes- we are very enmeshed in our creative process.

This sounds like a fascinating process. I know you often design the costumes yourself too Alice, is this the case for the upcoming work?

Yes, definitely. I know from working with the dancers how they will move and so I like to design the costumes to feel comfortable and have flattering lines. I love having the opportunity to discuss these ideas with the dancers, using both their aesthetic as well as somatic vocabulary. Having been a dancer myself for a number of years, I know how costuming influences your movement. For example, many of the classical ballets have tutus that have boning in the corset and the bodice, which puts you in a certain posture and forces you to breathe in a certain way. My ballets are about being human.

The dancers are truly not acting as other people but being themselves—I need the costuming to be able to tease that out too. I like the idea of the audience being able to connect with the dancers—as if it were them on stage- breaking down the fourth wall. So what we wear as dancers is important, and I aim for them to express the dancers’ personalities. I’m thinking about so many things—is the fabric slippery, does it fall over their face when they are upside down, can it be durable, and so on. I really do enjoy working on that journey with the dancers.

You’ve had an incredibly productive last year Alice, choreographing widely internationally, for Singapore Ballet, West Australian Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet and Germany’s Oldenberg Ballet. 2025 is set to be just as illustrious for you. How are you feeling about the year ahead?

I’m so excited about the year unfolding, and the opportunities I have to work with these extraordinary people. Every dancer brings a new palette of colours—working with each cast even on the same work, allows a completely different story and ballet to unfold. It will be wonderful to revisit Houston Ballet, as I last worked with their academy in 2018. Some of those dancers who were students then are now in the company, so it will be a joy to meet them at this incredible stage of their careers.

I’m having such a ‘pinch me’ moment, and just overjoyed to be working with these incredible dancers, and people like Stanton Welch, who is an old friend from my days at the Australian Ballet. To use Aussie terminology, I’m really so stoked.

Leila Lois

Leila Lois is a dancer and writer of Kurdish and Celtic heritage. Her poetry, essays and reviews have been published in Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada by Southerly Journal, LA Review of Books, Honey Literary Journal, Right Now, Delving Into Dance and more.

comments

Featured

REVIEWS | Faye Arthurs

Getting the BAAND Back Together

The BAAND Together Dance Festival was created in 2021 to reintroduce dance to New York City after the pandemic.

REVIEWS | Kris Kosaka

Stars in Tokyo

Ballet Asteras, the National Ballet of Japan’s annual summer gala launched in 2009 as an opportunity for Japanese dancers working overseas to perform for their home audience.

REVIEWS | Karen Hildebrand

The Answer is Land

“Vástádus Eana—The Answer is Land” opens outdoors, where the audience has gathered around a grassy area. Seven women in black skirts, ankle boots, red capes, and bonnets approach toting megaphones above their heads.

REVIEWS | Merilyn Jackson

All Grown Up, But Still Playful

Inspired by her fascination with microphotography, Noelle Kayser’s “Scales on the Wings of a Butterfly” at BalletX’s midsummer series opened with a pyramid of 16 bodies under Drew Billiau’s shadowed lighting.