The Ballad of Bouncing Back
by Alec Katsourakis & InPlay Projects
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'The Ballad of Bouncing Back' (2025), by Alec Katsourakis and InPlay Projects. Photo by Jeff Busby.
— The ultimate rebound
What does it take to pick yourself up? Dust yourself off? To bounce back, again, and again, and again?
With plenty of balls, set somewhere between a playground and a pressure cooker, The Ballad of Bouncing Back 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: relentless, playful, optimistic and quietly defiant. Through rhythm, repetition and ritual, a physical vocabulary unfolds, channeling both the absurdity and the necessity of resilience.
Choreographer: Alec Katsourakis
Collaborators: Reuben Macdougall Di Manno, Jacqui Maida, Lucinda Worthing-Shore, Amelie Logan, Opal Russel, Luke Romero, Nadiayh Akbar, Jasmine Susic, Jareen Wee, Helena May, Rory Warne, Molly Haringsma, Carlie Shaw, Chase Clegg-Robinson, Hayley Roe.
The Ballad of Bouncing Back has been supported by The Coburg Courthouse Residency via Merri-Bek City Council
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Alec Katsourakis is a Greek-Australian, Naarm based dancer, choreographer, and dance-filmmaker, whose work blends dynamic movement, game design, play, and filmmaking. Based in Melbourne, Alec has choreographed and directed 3 full length dance works, 3 short dance-films as well as various short dance, film and mult-media works. Alec has collaborated with dance and physical theatre companies Stephanie Lake Company, House of Sand and A2 Company, as well as collaborating and performing with numerous independent choreographers. Alec’s practice thrives on collaboration and experimentation, playing with conventions of choreographic practice through interdisciplinary approaches. He leads InPlay Projects, a project-based dance company exploring the interplay of play, games, and live-cinema in dance-theatre and film. InPlay’s works have been showcased at festivals across (so-called) Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
InPlay Projects is a collective of dancers, choreographers and artists exploring play and games as a medium for interdisciplinary performance. Their work spans live performance, film and integrated live cinema. InPlay Projects is directed by Alec Katsourakis and has presented work in festivals and venues across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand including Melbourne Fringe, Wellington Fringe, Dance(Lens), Latrobe Regional Gallery, The Festival for Work in Development and Playstation Gallery. Their work as been described as ‘wholly engaging from top to tail’, Otto Kosok Theatreview, and ‘playful, energetic, physically enduring and mind-bendingly contemplative’, Kim Mcdonald, Visual Artist.
InPlay Projects would like to thank Chelsea Byrne and The Coburg Courthouse Residency.
