The Ballad of Bouncing Back

A relentless, playful, and quietly defiant ode to the human spirit.

In a world that feels increasingly burnt out and defeatist, The Ballad of Bouncing Back explores what it means to keep going, what it takes to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and bounce back, again and again and again.

Set in a space that feels both playground and pressure cooker, this new work by InPlay Projects embraces the absurdity of keeping it together when everything is falling apart. Endurance takes centre stage, not as spectacle, but as a slow-burn act of resistance. Through rhythm, repetition and ritual, a physical vocabulary unfolds, playful yet punishing, tender yet unyielding.

The repetition is physical, joyful, frustrating and exhausting. It pushes the performers to the brink and then asks them to keep going. The tension between collapse and recovery becomes a choreography of endurance, revealing the poetry in persistence.

Through play and physical rigour, The Ballad of Bouncing Back channels both the absurdity and the necessity of resilience. It celebrates the hopeful act of continuing in the face of failure, not as a grand heroic gesture, but as a deeply human one. Whether we’re bouncing back from heartbreak, hardship, or just a rough day, this work reminds us: persistence is power, optimism is resistance, and it’s never too late to bounce back.