The ballad of bouncing back
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https://www.melbournefringe.com.au/whats-on/events/ballad-of-bouncing-back
Date Reviewed: 18/10/2025
When The Ballad of Bouncing Back by InPlay Projects begins at the Dancehouse, I’m not sure what to make of it. The dancers enter, but they look less like dancers, and more like players entering a stadium. They start circling the room in steady rhythm, nothing flashy, just bodies moving in sequence, carrying tennis racquets, basketballs, skipping ropes. It feels almost too simple as they dribble, skip, and I catch myself wondering what I've come to see. Is it a sports training session?
But slowly, something shifts. The repetition becomes hypnotic, trancelike, like watching a kinetic sculpture come to life: movement looping, recalibrating, gathering force. I start searching for links between the dancers’ motions, racing to say words between interventions of an elevator voice announcing the “levels” they’re climbing. I begin to anticipate the next step, as if decoding a game of rhythm and logic; the pressure to perform, persist, and prove one’s worth in a world that keeps moving the goalposts.
What starts as mechanical becomes emotional, an endurance test that feels as much about life as it is about dance.
A camera joins the action. Dancers take turns filming each other, projecting their bodies onto a large screen. Focus shifts — a hand in motion, a face mid-turn, a ripple of muscle — and suddenly the dance becomes art in motion. The audience appears on screen too, fleetingly, as if drawn into the choreography. It’s unsettling and beautiful. We’re even handed projectiles to throw at the performers, blurring the line between witness and participant.
Then, the counting stops. The dancers erupt, writhing, jumping, slapping the floor with raw intensity. It looks painful; their bodies drag as if pulled by gravity itself. Persistence becomes defiance. As they climb through the final levels, their voices rise, and energy builds until the entire room is invested. When the last cue drops, everyone cheers. No more levels.
From start to finish, The Ballad of Bouncing Back is repetitive, relentless, and disorienting by design. It mirrors the grind of resilience, the absurd act of holding it together when everything’s falling apart.
The ensemble moves like a living organism, at times in tight unison, at others splintering apart like magnets caught between attraction and resistance. Their bodies collide and recoil, a kaleidoscope of motion that captures both the chaos and the harmony of survival. It’s an astonishingly intelligent work, performed with precision, vulnerability, and physical wit.
At the end, choreographer Alec Katsourakis addresses the crowd. “After the test, I remember the last day in primary school. The kid who broke my nose came up to me and said, ‘When you become a famous ballet dancer, you’ll always remember me as the guy who broke your nose.’ Jokes on him — I didn’t really break my nose, nor become a famous ballet dancer.”
Katsourakis may not be a famous ballet dancer, but he’s created something far more affecting: a raw portrait of trying, failing, and trying again.
Because bouncing back isn’t always graceful, but it’s always worth it. This performance is worth it too.
"Encore!" says someone in the crowd, and the elevator voice begins from scratch.
Highlights
- Deeply personal message
- Mechanical to emotional transformation
- Interactive components where you fling projectiles at the troupe
- Raw intensity and release.
Who's it for
- Fans of conceptual, abstract dance
- Those seeking a visceral experience
- People interested in themes of resilience
- All ages, young and old.
Reviewed by Mary Sinanidis