So I had been thinking about gesture as widely as possible …
How it is used in dance and choreography – the work of Bob Fosse (Chicago), the choreography of West Side Story, folk dance, Bollywood, Ballroom culture and the language of Vogueing, Madonna and Vogue, Christine and the Queens and Tilted, Edward Scissorhands, the work of Wayne McGregor and Radiohead Lotusflower.
How we use emojis constantly in text communications – we seem to need gesture replacements … thumbs ups, winks and many more.
Source: https://blog.emojipedia.org/proposals-for-shaka-and-west-coast-hand/
Then all ‘this’ happened. The Covid-19 crisis.
The progress I had made had to be shelved as travel to meet contacts was suspended and my venue for working with community groups closed. A big blow to my project at a point when I finally felt I was getting somewhere.
I put the project to one side and diverted my attention to my family home from school, and making scrubs for the Scrubs Glorious Scrubs collective who set up in my home town.
I am still doing those activities, but am able to very slowly start thinking about gesture and my practice again. The project feels apposite to maintain as we now live in a world where bodily gesture has become remote by necessity of lockdown – we are making gestures by video, from 2 metres away or it has been removed altogether by keeping us distant from friends and family.
