COLLABORATIONS
Ana Topalovic regularly develops projects beyond the traditional concert format, collaborating with dance, theatre, visual art and other disciplines. Sound becomes part of a larger performative space in which music interacts with movement, text, image, sculpture and place.
Dance Performance
“The dialogue between Rosalie Wanka (dance) and Ana Topalovic (cello) in their “DAN_CE_LLO” is in a class of its own [...] There is a delicate, almost fingertip-like subtlety to what they conjure up, both as soloists and together through improvisation, on stage—or rather, in this particular setting: a courtyard beneath a linden tree. Singing, bowing the cello, playing it with their fingers, and repeatedly dancing with their feet beneath it. Explosive and expressive is the way Wanka sets her body in motion—her fingers dancing across it, her limbs appearing in a window. The edge of the stage becomes her tightrope, the old, tiered masonry a backdrop brought to life through dance. All this is not so much about telling a story as about the irrepressible joy they take in each action, which without exception feels entirely spontaneous. And not only when Wanka briefly moves through the rows of the audience does one feel immediately swept along—by her and by the music.”
Ana Topalovic has a long-term collaboration with dancer and choreographer Rosalie Wanka in the duo DAN_CE_LLO – Visible Music ↗︎. Since their debut in 2015 at the Wiener Konzerthaus, they have performed at venues and festivals including Gasteig Munich, Posthof Linz, Prinzregententheater, Lange Nacht des Tanzes (Carinthia), Meridian Festival Bucharest, Murten Classics and Austrian Cultural Forums.
Their work is based on the close interaction between music and movement. Using extended techniques, live electronics, and her Multicello approach, Ana creates a layered, polyphonic sound world in real time. Rosalie Wanka works with task-based improvisation, responding to the music, space, and objects, and integrating elements of the surroundings into the performance.
Improvisation plays a central role in the duo, allowing for a continuous exchange between sound and movement. The performances are shaped as thematic programs with a narrative structure, rather than focusing on a specific style or period, and include works by women composers alongside original compositions and transcriptions.
The duo performs in concert settings as well as staged and site-specific formats, and has developed works such as Bezirzungen ↗︎, Landscapes of My Inner Diaspora ↗︎, Fragmentango ↗︎ and Scores ↗︎.
Spoken Word
Ana Topalovic collaborates with actors in the development of interdisciplinary performance formats combining music and text. Her work includes readings with music as well as staged and scenic performances, focusing on the interaction between spoken word and musical interpretation.
She has worked with actors such as Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz, Alexander Waechter, and Laura Maire, and maintains a long-term collaboration with actress Chris Pichler. Together they have developed programs including Die Welt ist weit, combining literature by women with music, and Frau Schnaps – Beethoven’s Housekeeper ↗︎, as well as numerous programs for children ↗︎.
Visual Arts
Ana Topalovic regularly collaborates with visual artists and cultural institutions, developing musical programs for exhibitions and gallery contexts. Her work has accompanied exhibitions at institutions including the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, the Naturhistorisches Museum Vienna, the Albertina, the Austrian National Library and Schönbrunn Palace.
In these settings, she curates and performs programs that establish connections between music and visual art. The repertoire includes original compositions, improvisations, soundscapes as well as works developed in collaboration with composers, tailored to the specific context of each exhibition.
Her projects also include formats with live painting and transdisciplinary performance, involving live improvisation in interaction with visual processes. She has collaborated with artists and curatorial platforms such as Angela Glajcar, TransArt Festival, Wolfgang Semmelrock, Conspect Curators, Günther Povaly and Johannes Hellborn.
This approach was also reflected in her festival Treffpunkt Kunst, where she curated exhibitions and developed corresponding musical programs.