SLG CeljeSLG Celje

Original project

This is a Match

To je tekma

Director Miha Golob

World premiere
Interactive performance for children 4+
Opening December 2023

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This is a Match is an original project inspired by This is a Ball, a picture book by Beck and Matt Stanton in which everything is wrong. To begin with, there is a mistake on the book cover: the picture underneath the title clearly shows a cube, not a ball. It is followed by testing a geometric shape, identity and content of three images. Once the (adult) reader and the (child) listener have agreed on the answers, a journey can begin, winding through mistakes, misunderstandings, and ignorance (lies?): the reader confuses a bicycle and a car, a princess and a monster, a dragon and a dog, a factory and a beach... Imagine the stories generated by these mix-ups! And the story never ends – »This is not the end of the book«, it says on the last page.  
This is a Match is an exploration of knowledge and understanding, adulthood and authority. How many children dare to contradict adults, even if they are wrong? How many children dare to argue their point, even if they are certain to be right? Can they prove their claims so that adults believe them? Do they know how to find the evidence, in such a way that makes learning fun? What about the adults – do they give up learning when they grow up? What can children teach adults? 
Members of the audience enter the auditorium and take their seats.  An adult presenter enters the pitch and tries to explain the rules of the match that is about to start. That’s right, we are at the match – we have tickets! Why else would we have them? We sit and look in the same direction – not to miss a single point. The pitch is perfectly lit – so we can see better the gripping contest. And so on. Are tickets, an empty space and plenty of attentive spectators a sufficient condition to conclude that we are at a sporting event? The production aims to observe every theatrical motif by submitting it to the audience for verification; it advocates posing questions as the foundation of knowledge, and verification as the foundation of understanding. It does not, however, advertise the value and importance of knowledge, but suggests playfully a creative route that leads to it – those who likes the process, are more likely to reach the goal. 
This upside-down show, aimed at children and their adults, challenges the notions of what is right and what is wrong. As adults we are always right in life, so during the show we are wrong about everything, completely and consistently. Funny changeovers absorb children to become involved, inviting them to move from passive observation to active co-creation, while practising some basic concepts such as colours, shapes and sizes. Children are invited to think, reason and play creatively, and to think independently, while adults are wittily and gently guided to check stereotypes (including the idea that »grown-ups« are always right). 

What can children teach adults?

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