Alice Topp is bringing Shakespeare's darkest tragedy to the ballet stage. The acclaimed Australian choreographer's new production of Macbeth premieres with the Royal New Zealand Ballet in February 2026 as part of the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival and Auckland Arts Festival—a co-production with West Australian Ballet that promises to be a visceral exploration of power, ambition and feverish descent into madness.
In an exclusive interview for Dance Australia, Alice Topp talks to Leila Lois about this bold new work, her approach to adapting Shakespeare, and why this ancient tragedy feels like an urgently contemporary new ballet.
Lelia Lois: How do you translate Shakespeare's dense, language-driven tragedy into pure movement?
Alice Topp: Shakespeare's text is wonderfully, wildly rich in conjuring vivid imagery and describing behaviours, emotions, atmosphere and energy. All of the movement is right there in his words. The story is a psychological drama and details the conversations, interactions, personalities and great colours of the characters, giving me clear direction but also allowing me scope for interpretation.
Shakespeare's text might be dense but it also has movement written into the language. The environmental movement, for example; thunder and lightning, fog, knocking, the element of the unnatural, appearances and disappearances. Then there's spatial movement; the places where interactions unfold and the characters' proximity to each other. Whether it's a social gathering or a domestic setting, each space influences the movement within it, and the kind of movement; a banquet indicates a celebratory occasion, suggesting buoyant, vibrant movement, whereas a private moment between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth at home suggests intimate dialogue. The story's flow and dynamism creates its own movement system.
All of my choreographic creations are inspired by the human condition and my desire to capture these stories through movement. Macbeth is a story fuelled by the human condition; love, grief, guilt, pain and ambition - enduring themes that are ripe for physical dialogue. I love the process of discovering where these emotions exist in the body, the many ways we can physicalise them and how to tease them out with the individual. Every voice is unique and it's a beautiful journey to work with the extraordinary artists on how we can best interpret these stories and characters.
LL: What aspects of the text became more vivid or potent when stripped of words?
AT: My language has always been dance. Some artists paint, write, film, photograph, sing or act but dance and body language has always been a vital part of my self-expression. Transforming Shakespeare's text into movement is a tremendous privilege and gift, and I can only hope to do his masterpiece justice.
LL: The play is full of soliloquies—intimate, internal moments. How do you choreograph inner turmoil and psychological unraveling without spoken language?
AT: There are a few Shakespearean stories synonymous with ballet, most notably, Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream and The Winter's Tale. When we look at some of ballet's greatest tragedies, Giselle, Swan Lake, Onegin, Manon for example, many of these famous works have inner turmoil and psychological unraveling components. These qualities are critical drivers in the human condition. Choreographing inner turmoil is something that I find is transformable - pain in the body creates behaviours and physical manifestations that I can draw on. These affectations are a kind of dance. Psychological unraveling can be exhibited in many different ways - through erratic movement, opposing stillness and shock, a resignation in the insecure body, an inflated egotistical posture, a gut-wrenching hunch, a twist and knot in the body, a distortion with torsion… the psychological always affects the body.
LL: Lady Macbeth is one of theatre's most complex female characters. How does your choreographic approach to her differ from or challenge traditional interpretations? What new dimensions emerge when her manipulation, ambition, and descent are expressed through the body?
AT: There aren't many Macbeth ballets - theatre productions, yes, but not many dance productions. This gives me tremendous freedom to construct our own version of these characters. In our modern reimagining, Lady Macbeth possesses qualities we might experience in people we know; passion, drive, courage, ambition, manipulation, jealousy, ego, confidence, insecurity, agony. These qualities are highly relatable. The Macbeths might be absolutely murderous characters but it's the human in them that's their undoing - they are fully aware and conflicted by their choices and actions, and it ultimately destroys them.
Lady Macbeth is such a complex character that it provides me with the most vivid palette for which to paint her. Her complexities are my ammunition. I think quite often we think of these villain characters as "good versus evil," but there is an element of good in these torn souls. It's exciting for me to explore these dualities and to explore it through movement. Interpreting these qualities - manipulation, ambition and descent - through the body is just a different kind of currency. Words and actions can land differently but both are readily accessible. Demonstrating these emotions, behaviours and qualities through physical dialogue can cut to the core the way words, music, imagery and so on, can. It's about finding, just like in those other media, the recipe where the message lands deeply, and is felt. It can hit the cerebral but ultimately it's your heart that you want stirred.
LL: The Macbeths' marriage is central to the tragedy—a partnership that becomes toxic. How do you choreograph their relationship's evolution from intimacy to isolation?
AT: Again, it's all there in the text and it's thrilling to interpret through movement! Their relationship through dance in the first act demonstrates their loyalty to each other, their love and passion, their co-conspiratorial pact and their desires for themselves and each other. Their intimacy is clearly exhibited through their intertwined partnering, passionate duets and charged interactions. The conversation flips in act two when they wrestle with their guilt and the ramifications of their actions. People react differently to trauma and their reactions drive a wedge between them. Macbeth also embarks on a killing spiral, which he no longer consults his wife on, as he is thrust into a world of paranoia and attempts to stem the distrust. They started out as a partnership and end up on their own paths of destruction. This derailment gives me the greatest language to play with!
Intimacy and isolation are already geographical words - they express a physical and emotional distance. That's what makes Macbeth so enticing to me as a choreographer: so much of the movement is already there within the text… I can see it when I read it!
LL: Tell me about your creative team and the design elements—how do costuming, lighting and design enhance the ballet?
AT: I'm working with award-winning designer Jon Buswell, who's a long-time RNZB collaborator—he's creating both set and lighting. And Aleisa Jelbart, who's Sydney-based and renowned for her work across ballet, opera and theatre, is bringing a bold, contemporary aesthetic to the costumes. Then there's Christopher Gordon's new score, which layers full orchestral and heavy metal with a live string octet performed by members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. It's pounding, relentless—it drives Macbeth and his Lady to their inevitable, devastating conclusion.
Storytelling is told through not just the choreography but through the music, soundscape, lighting, sets, set movement, costumes, colour palette, textures, and more. They create the environment for the story to unfold and tell us a lot about the characters - who they are, how they live, for example, by the clothes they wear, the luxe fabrics, their home decor, their personal tastes. These design elements are pivotal to the storytelling and create a world in which I can respond to with movement.
LL: You're setting this in a contemporary context—can you describe the world of your Macbeth?
AT: Our Macbeth is set in a hierarchy-hungry, high-society city, where political storms, media frenzy and personal ambition collide. I wanted to place Macbeth at the centre of a volatile political and media world. Together with his formidable wife, Macbeth ascends to dizzying heights of influence before their world unravels in a feverish spiral of ambition, guilt and bloodshed. It's about the seduction of success and adulation giving way to doubt, paranoia and madness.
LL: You'll be working with intimacy coordinators and fight choreographers during the creation process?
AT: Yes, we will be having an intimacy coordinator and a fight choreographer consult and support us on this journey during the creation process in January/February. Given the violence and intensity of the story, and the complex physical and emotional demands on the dancers, it's essential to have that expertise and support in the room.
LL: What do you hope audiences take away from this production?
AT: I want them to feel the explosive power of the story, to see their own world reflected in this ancient tragedy. The themes of political ambition, the corrosive nature of power, the media's role in shaping reality—these couldn't be more relevant. It's high-octane contemporary ballet, visceral and unflinching. Through the drama of dance, we're laying bare this descent into darkness. 
-Leila Lois
Macbeth will premiere with the Royal New Zealand Ballet in Wellington on February 25, 2026, before seasons in Auckland and a national tour. The production then travels to West Australian Ballet. For more information: www.rnzb.org.nz