Sportsball
Christchurch Art Gallery Mainstage, Christchurch
25/02/2023 - 25/02/2023
Christchurch Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora, 2 Worcester Boulevard, Christchurch
29/08/2024 - 01/09/2024
Ōtautahi Tiny Performance Festival
Production Details
Director: Melanie Luckman
Designer/Operator: Rosie Gilmore
Cubbin Theatre Company
Sportsball is the story of Tai, a young child with an active inner world and an active outer world. Tai loves playing and watching sports with his dad and he loves his big red ball. He can do lots of amazing tricks with his ball but when a game at a birthday party doesn’t go his way, Tai has to work through his feelings and find a way to move through a difficult situation with the help of his dad, his friends and his imagination.
Sportsball is for busy kids, physical kids, imaginative kids, creative kids, curious kids. Kids who love throwing, catching, kicking, jumping, rolling, running, and kids who love to watch. Kids who love to win and kids who just want to have a go. Kids who have big outward feelings and kids who have big inward feelings. We created this show for four – six-year-olds, but everyone is welcome!
Presented as part of Tiny Fest, Christchurch
Saturday 25 February 2023
Showtimes 12:00 and 15:00
Main Stage (Williams Corp exhibition space) at the Christchurch Art Gallery
29 August – 1 September 2024.
Showtimes 10am, 11.30am Thursday and Friday and 10am and 1pm Saturday and Sunday.
Buy tickets here.
Cloisters Studio Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre
Tai: Christopher Alan Moore
Featuring original music by Amy Straker and Nathan Straker.
Operator: Isla Mclarin
Children’s , Theatre , Solo ,
40 minutes
The display and ball work make for an engaging time and admiring exclamations
Review by Lindsay Clark 27th Feb 2023
As part of the Ōtautahi Tiny Performance Festival, this latest offering from the innovative Cubbin Theatre Company proves once again that theatre play is fun for all ages. A boy, a big red ball and exuberantly physical momentum are simple but effective ingredients.
The boy is Tai, played by Chris (Christopher Alan Moore). In the solo performance, his extraordinary ability with and on the big red Swiss ball makes it seem almost a live contributor to the action. Play and the pleasure of achieving through play, shape the performance. In the first moments, as Tai picks up the ball and holds it, there is an unexpected and delighted laugh from a young viewer. Soon there are laughs at laughter itself, setting a mood where the audience is freely part of the overall fun.
The story line is brief and uncluttered, designed for an under 5 audience but relished for its energy by adult hangers-on. Tai shows us all the sports he loves, demonstrating with the ball how he can take on rugby or swimming, basketball or volleyball, gymnastics. The display and ball work make for an engaging time and admiring exclamations. Eventually though, Tai, in the course of a birthday party game, finds that he has the lesson of self discipline and perseverance still to learn. Of course he manages that too and in triumph pulls off a complicated back flip on the ball, a tricky procedure we have seen attempted before but never mastered. Be patient, keep trying and you will get better. Not a bad message for all of us.
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