The Warp and The Weft R&D Day 1
Today marked the first R&D workshop for The Warp and The Weft! I boarded my bike this morning with a bag of fabric in the front and palpable excitement to get stuck into it! Over the course of a three-hour session, we journeyed through personal reflection, somatic movement, and collaborative discovery.
The session opened with a physical warm-up. We tuned into their bodies through a series of playful and somatic tasks. Using a format of “Yes / Yes and / No,” we explored how a conversation can feel in movement. This allowed us to meet and get to know each other, but through the language of movement!
Fabrics of Days Gone By…
We then went on to focus on fabrics of significance from our own lives. We recalled significant items of fabric from our pasts, focusing on one piece of fabric from early childhood, one from teenagedom and one from the present day. Through free writing and conversation, stories began to unfold: old teddies, towels, a swimming costume, a character skirt and a marvellous bright red Bershka puffer coat!
We then worked to translate the essence of these chosen fabrics into physical gesture. Working with the fabric’s weight, texture, structure, and emotional resonance, we began to build movement sequences that embodied the different pieces of fabric. Movement scores began to emerge from these stories, offering a physical vocabulary which, when strung together, gave the sense of a life story of growing up told through three fabrics.
Life as a Tapestry
We then listened to a recording from my grandmother talking about how she views life as a tapestry we are able to weave. This was followed by a little investigation into the process of weaving, looking at the different jobs and qualities of the warp and the weft. We watched some videos of my grandmother setting up her loom and of me weaving a dish cloth under her tutorage.
We then reflected on our own lives as a woven tapestry. Three creative prompts guided the process:
What is your warp? – What threads have you been given?
What is your weft so far? – What have you added through your own choices?
What is your future weft? – What do you want to weave in next?
This framework sparked an interesting discussion about how identity is shaped, reshaped, and always evolving, - and how we can see that in the fabrics that surround us. There was a sense of agency and possibility in identifying what we all might want to weave for the future as well as acknowledging what we see as our given parameters.
Stiching in the loose threads
We finished the day with a final feedback session, discussing what we had found rich and helpful, and where we are excited to develop the project. Here are a few quotes from that final discussion!
“I was struck by how much I take for granted… the value of fabric, and the meaning that has attached to my life.”
“How much can you feel you are an agent, or how much have you been woven around?”
“ When we first started talking about life as a tapestry there was a question of who’s doing the weaving? When reality is, we can’t really give it to someone else, it’s ours.”
Day one offered a grounded yet expansive entry point into the themes at the heart of The Warp and The Weft. Through fabric, movement, shared story and personal agency, we began to trace our own personal threads, discover how important fabric is in all of our lives—and consider how we might weave forward.
See you tomorrow!
Izzy
