Holding Ground is a solo performance that weaves together storytelling, song, and quilt-making in an intimate exploration of home, memory, and connection across distance. Rooted in the artist’s South African–German heritage, the work reflects on life between languages, geographies, and generations.
At its heart is a patchwork of modern-day “love letters”—WhatsApp messages, voice notes, music links, and photos—transformed into quilted squares. The quilt becomes a soft archive of care: an attempt to hold what is often fleeting or intangible and to wrap oneself in connection.
The piece draws on personal narrative and research into the visual poetics of Blaudruck/Isishweshwe and Southern African beadwork love letters, tracing how textiles have moved through German–South African trade histories into personal meaning-making. These materials—alongside memories passed down from the artist’s late grandmother at the sewing machine—shape a work that is both deeply personal and widely resonant.
Audience members are gently invited to assist in the live act of quilting—passing a pin, holding the light—becoming part of this collective practice of “holding ground” together.
For anyone who has loved across distance or longed to bridge cultural and familial divides, Holding Ground offers a tender space of reflection, resonance, and repair.
Tobi King Bakare and this theatre deserve a shout-out for such a young, diverse audience. There is so much talk about audiences being full of over 60s and why, why can’t theatres get the crowds in to reflect society in general? Well, I’m happy to say that on a rainy Thursday evening, the theatre was completely full.
Caiti Grove on Before I Go in CPT's Spring 2023 season London Theatre Reviews
