Charizard

A bold work, apparently simple, yet complex in its thinking and deceptively demanding in its execution.
– Efrosini Protopapa

Two figures synchronously perform a sequence of hand gestures to the relentless beat of a metronome.

These gestures are variously recognisable (two fingers up), semantic (BSL), antiquated (hand positions within Rennaisance painting) and fictional (hand signs from the manga Naturo). Stripped of context, and lacking clear meaning, the only thing the audience can be sure of is the significant committment of the two deadpan performers to learn these ’empty gestures’.

This deceptively simple premise produces a poetic and intimate encounter. The metronome keeps quietly ticking, and the audience begin to see each performer exposed through this labour of rememberence. Each slip (and hurried recovery) reveals the precarity of their unison. Empty Gestures is an absorbing mandala of decontextualized data, which reflects on the role of our fleshy and faulty bodies at a time in which information is produced and circulated more rapidly and widely than ever before.

Empty Gestures was an early but important work for us. We thought of it as our ‘party piece’ – short, punchy, and always ready to be performed if the mood was right. Before each performance we would add to the string of gestures.

Performance: First presented at Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester, May 2016. 15 mins duration (and growing).

Empty Gestures has also been presented at Michaelis Theatre (London), Attenborough Arts Centre (Leicester), Rich Mix and Tender Loin (London) and Salon Rose (Edinburgh).