Loom and thread
Stories in Half
A play for toddlers, worked on hand looms designed and modified for the stage: an invitation to experience the making and breaking of rhythms.
- 18 months – 3 years
- 30 minutes
- 3 performers
- With spoken text
Premiered 7 December 2024 at Ranga Shankara, Bengaluru.
The play
We catch a story only in the middle.
Once upon a time and happily ever after implies just that.
There was always time before we capture it at that moment of “being once”; and “ever after” is obviously that which continues. Toddlers breathe, smell, see, hear and touch the world around them. Stories in Half works with this exact principle of toddler theatre, and presents a play where pieces of a story can be experienced in their formation rather than their finitude. Only when we reckon with that which is being made can we appreciate how making is felt, seen, heard and experienced.
The play works with the concept of the warp and the weft, to experience how stories can be woven or unwoven, nonetheless always forming a pattern, or the promise of one. Using hand weaving looms designed and modified for the stage, it invites toddlers and adults alike to enjoy the monotony and hypnosis of rhythmic sounds and spoken words, and to see how crafting a weave is immanent yet shot through with the tragic and the joyful.
A play which shows and lets a story be heard, rather than tells one.
We believe toddlers do experience the anticipation, suspense, fright, waiting, expectation and laughter built into stories, even if they do not have the faculty of language as yet. On stage there are threads, patterns and weaving through looms, while the actors work at tying and untying knots, and in so doing present a story in half, to be told and continued and experienced at the moment of its own making.
For the adults who bring them
What to expect.
Children from 18 months to 3 years. We ask that only children within the play's age band attend.
One parent or guardian with each child. You sit together on the floor, close to the playing area.
Children may move, make noise, or turn away. None of that is a problem. The play does not depend on holding their attention by force.
The children are invited into the performance area to handle the thread. We take that as their feedback on the play.
For schools and venues
Technical
Audiences are small and sit close. After the play the children are invited into the performance space to handle the looms and thread themselves.
| Age range | 18 months to 3 years |
|---|---|
| Running time | 30 minutes, no interval |
| Language | Spoken text, in English |
| Cast | 3 performers |
| Company on the road | 6 in all: 3 performers, 1 director, 1 production manager, 1 technician |
| Audience capacity | 20–25 children, each with one accompanying adult |
| Performance space | 25 × 25 ft (7.6 × 7.6 m), on a suitable even floor. No stage required. |
| Get-in | 3–5 hours before the start of the event |
| Get-out | 1 hour after the performance |
| Lighting | A desirable lighting scenario exists; the play is flexible, from a full rig to almost none. Details on enquiry. |
In performance
Photographs and clips
Click any frame to open it. Clips open with the sound off. Turn it on once and the rest follow.
Credits
Made with the help of weavers, a textile museum and a village trust.
With thanks to Head Start Educational Academy; Janapada Seva Trust, Melkote; Vimor Museum of Living Textiles; Sachin Gurjale; Padmanabha Rao; and Karuna Dietrich Wielenga.
| Written & directed by | Subhashim Goswami |
|---|---|
| Cast | Apoorva Arthur, Ashwini Kumar Chakre, Samta Shikhar |
| Music | Abhaydev Praful |
| Lights | Manju Narayan |
| Sound execution | Bharath Raavudi |
| Video | Amit Mahanti |
| Costume & poster | Aastha |
| Production | Sanjay Bharadwaj |
| Premiered | 7 December 2024, Ranga Shankara, Bengaluru |
I want to bring children
Performances are arranged with venues, schools and early-years settings rather than sold to the public. Tell us who the children are and where you are.
I want to present the work
Running times, cast size, staging conditions and the full technical specification for all three plays. Where fees are a barrier, we seek funding to come anyway.