Assis Carreiro
Artist Management 
International Arts & 
Cultural Projects

The Press

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'High Tide... with stunning set and lighting design by Jon Buswell that brings compelling coherence to the choreography. A huge projected circle of light eclipses from a full to a new moon, becomes a disco ballet, a bubble, a mirror, a globe, the earth. Each of these references is absorbed into a series of highly innovastive pas de deux' Jennifer Shennan, Dance Europe, Nov/Dec 2024

 

'(re: Square Pegs) Blink and you’ll miss it: the moment when, at the end of one of the most irresistible duets I’ve ever seen on a Tulsa Ballet stage, a woman crawls up from underneath a baggy sweater her man is wearing, belly to belly with him until her face pokes out of the neck hole, facing his. In a perfect magic-trick switcheroo, she ends up wearing it herself, standing alone, as he ducks down out of it and walks away. 

 

'The ​“Jumper Duet” (jumper = sweater; Alice Topp, the choreographer, is Australian) is the last movement of Square Pegs, a short piece I could have watched again immediately... I still don’t quite know how a lot of things that happened in Square Pegs happened. How Aubin Le Marchand, for instance, managed to lift Jaimi Cullen upside down (in that same duet) with apparently only her flexed foot at the back of his neck as an anchor point. Or how Jun Masuda seemed to be breathing through gills instead of lungs in a long opening solo, a shapeshifting ripple of underwater buoyancy in a giant pool of light, or how he casually stopped in a one-legged balance after six of the fastest pirouettes in history.' Alicia Chesser, Newhaven Independent, Sept, 2024

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'Another gem was Alice Topps’ Little Atlas. A trio for Dimity Azoury, Jarryd Madden and Jake Mangakahia it had an appealing freshness that subtly catches the imagination. It is intricate and, at times, acrobatic but without brashness and accompanied by Ludovico Einaudi’s memorable music.' - Maggie Foyer, SeeingDance

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'A volatile work of metaphorical and symbolic monsters manifesting as devastatingly topical pressures and crises, Logos is dark and vital contemporary ballet.' - Brigitte Knight, Danz

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'Logos is the climax of the program and a staggering moment where we remember the beauty of dance, for how we can feel the proximity of beauty even in the sad moments.' - Dance Australia

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'Paragon re-introduces the heavyweights of Australian ballet to a delighted audience. It has power, passion and emotional resonance. It marks The Australian Ballet’s 60th anniversary with grace and style.' - Alex First, The Blurb

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'Paragon also gave the audience a remarkable look at Topp as a choreographer. It showed her working with a vocabulary that is clearly one of contemporary ballet, pushing boundaries, and thinking outside the square when it comes to what ballet can present in a narrative sense. Within it all was a beautiful tribute to the history of the Australian Ballet.' - Michelle Potter

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'Celebrating 60 years of the Australian Ballet, resident choreographer Alice Topp creates a  thrilling scrapbook – a Paragon - of vignettes with current and past star dancers.' - Martin Portus, Stage Whispers

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'Open Heart Story unfolds as a series of duets, trios and quartets. Featuring a costume for the female dancer that is a roadmap of arteries, the opening duet is emotionally haunting, and was exquisitely performed.'- Kim Balfour, Seesaw

 

'The second half of the bill is Paragon, another new work by Alice Topp. Her contribution to last year’s triple bill, Instruments of Dance, was confirmation the ballet’s resident choreographer is a vital voice in Australian dance today.'- Brisbane Times

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'Deeply powerful, Aurum is a showcase in strength and balance, of the true lengths our bodies can go when given the chance.....Underscored by intermingled violin and piano pieces by my favourite composer, Ludovico Einaudi, Aurum is wholly beautiful and quite moving.' - Emma Maguire, The Wellingtonista

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'Annealing..... is visually spectacular, danced on a set of imposing glass panels with the dancers clothed in silver and gold. At one point the full ensemble of 50 dancers assembled on stage, decked in magnificent golden robes which they swished about; I felt I’d been transported to some exotic, futuristic feudal society. There were also lyrical duets and solos interspersed throughout.' - Chantal Nguyen, backtrack.com

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'Topp’s piece Annealing has 50 dancers mastering some of the most diverse steps yet seen from Australian Ballet’s Resident Choreographer. Annealingis a brilliant melding of collective order and individual creativity.' - Paris Wages, classicmelbourne.com.au

 

'Topp has a remarkable grasp of theatrical effects, most evident in the group work that makes up Annealing’s central section. That purity of aesthetic – invoking the retro-futurism of Apple TV’s adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation – would press the piece into the ethereal if it weren’t for Topp’s earthy sensualism. Gender is malleable here too, with some stunning non-binary flourishes from Elijah Trevitt.' - Tim Byrne, Time Out, Australia.

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'The most interesting piece is Aurum,

choreographed in 2018 by Alice Topp, an

AB dancer who has been moving up the

creative ladder in the past few years.' - Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald

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'Alice Topp struck choreographic gold

with her new dancework Aurum when it was showered with critical praise at its Melbourne

premiere last year, and won an award named for Rudolf Nureyev.' - Matthew Westwood, The Australian

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'... Alice Topp is a choreographer in the making. Her star is about to rise further, if new work Aurum is any

guide.' - Stephanie Glickman, Herald Sun

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'She [Topp] is now a rising star and Logos represents another step in cementing her place as a very fine

choreographer.' - Susan Bendall, Dance Australia

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