The Warp and The Weft — show, workshops & community textile project
The Warp and The Weft began as director Izzy Ponsford’s the final research project of her MA in Contemporary Theatre Directing at Rose Bruford. It was first performed at the Rose Theatre, devised from a collection of women’s weaving stories - from Arachne and Philomela in Ovid to the AIDS Memorial Quilt, suffragette banners, and her own grandmother’s attic loom. The research question was, “How can storytelling practices of weaving, quilting and sewing influence modern story-telling in the theatre.” Through the process, Izzy discovered that for her, at this stage, to be a woman artist is to be a weaver, and delight in the softness and the strength that comes with that. The essence of the Arachne myth, for Izzy, was of a girl finding her power and voice in a female art. In a way, through Arachne’s story, Izzy found the same, and now through this piece/project wants to help other people find their voice, agency and power too.
The Warp and The Weft is living textile project: a touring show, an exhibition, and a series of workshops informed by textile work that collect and celebrate the cloth stories people carry.
Please see below for further information about the performance piece, the devising project and the workshops.
THE PERFORMANCE PIECE
The Warp and The Weft is a theatrical tapestry of movement, music, and storytelling — exploring the importance of fabric in shaping identity, fostering empowerment, and acting as a form of resistance. Fabric work has played a vital role in the cultural, spiritual, and political development of societies around the world, yet it is still often dismissed. Stitching together myth, memory, and lived experience, the piece shines a light on the intimate and global impact of textiles.
The Warp and The Weft invites audiences to reframe their understanding of textiles and to see how threads become voices and how fabric holds power. Rooted in both historical research and lived experience, it is both playful and poignant, and will have you laughing, learning, and leaving with a new relationship to the clothes on your back.
REVIEWS
PREVIOUS PERFORMANCES:
The Glitch Theatre:
17th–22nd September 2025 (19:00 daily, 14:00 Saturday matinee)
The Rose Theatre:
16th - 17th September 2024 (16:00 and 19:30)
Community Devising Residency
A week-long, hands-on residency that turns local stories and lived experience into a shared performance. We work like fabric is made- gathering, spinning, weaving, waulking - inviting participants to find stories, play with them, stitch them together and then refine. Across five days, our facilitators lead playful workshops that facilitate the voices of the group to tell their own stories through these theatrical methods devised from fabric work. No experience is required; curiosity is enough.
Sessions are trauma-informed and access-first and we aim to create an environment where participants feel empowered to share but not pressured to. We set the room like a craft circle - conversation, rhythm, and repetition building confidence - and draw in local stories via neighbourhood walks or exploring archive to bring in the textile history of the area.
By the end of the week, the group will have a short, co-authored piece to share informally, plus pieces of handmade fabric that can stay in the community as a reminder of the project. Ideal for schools, libraries, community centres, and festivals seeking meaningful, creative engagement that leaves something behind.
Workshops
These workshops run alongside the performance and are open for audience members to come to either before or after they have seen the show. These participatory workshops turn everyday cloth memories into shared choreography and song. We set the room like a craft circle, arrive through playful “movement conversations,” and let curiosity lead—no pressure to perform, just a gentle, social way back into the body.
From there, we invite fabric-led storytelling. Participants recall three significant textiles—one from childhood, one from adolescence, one from now—and translate weight, texture, and emotion into small gestures. Threaded together, they form a life-line told through cloth: teddies and towels, school skirts and bright coats and we can see our lives told in fabric.
We frame the work with a simple loom metaphor: warp (the threads you were given), weft so far (what you’ve added), and future weft (what you hope to weave). The conversation opens agency and possibility—acknowledging the limits of the life you have been given while imagining the change you could weave in for your future.
Midway, we meet waulking - the communal Scottish practice of softening tweed with rhythm and call-and-response song. It’s a doorway into collective pulse and care which encourages sharing, community and openness in the room.
By the end, we lean toward the future: three words to manifest what the fabrics of our futures will be, a movement for each, gradually woven together until the room becomes a small tapestry and we all move together.
What you take away isn’t just a workshop but a miniature of the project’s ethos: the importance of fabric in our lives, how we are our own agents of change and how in that change we are not alone but surrounded by people who will help soften the cloth.
NEXT STEPS
The Warp and The Weft is currently seeking funding and partners to move into further research and production - supporting access, fair pay, materials, rehearsal space, and travel. If you’re a funder, venue, or individual who’d like to back the next phase (grants, co-commissions, or in-kind support such as fabric and workspace), we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch via foolmoonltd@gmail.com, and join the mailing list to hear when we’re ready to open the doors