Hands - and why they fascinate me

We use our hands for everything - picking up a glass of water to brushing our teeth in the morning to typing on the keyboard to counting with our fingers to pressing and kneading clay... The possibilities are endless in terms of what the hands are capable of. We navigate the world and the environment around us through our sense of touch - hot/cold, friendly/un-friendly, relaxed/tense. Why can they do that? How are able to sense all of this through the sense of touch?

Our hands contains some of the densest areas of nerve endings in the body, thus containing the richest source of tactile feedback. Similarly to the soles of our feet, it contains at least 100 million nerves. Did you know? We (humans/homo sapiens) are the only species where we are able to touch our thumbs to our ring and pinkie fingers? That's pretty cool. The dexterity in our hands and fingers allows the human hands to have the greatest positioning capability of the body, thus exercises such as rock climbing and press-ups seem pretty straightforward to most of us.

What fascinates me most about the hands is the potential of expressivity in gestures and movement created throughout daily life. As a dancer, I am highly sensitive and connected to movement pathways and energies as I engage with them on a daily basis. Dancers incorporate complex coordinations of our torso, limbs, extremities and core. But sometimes, we often overlook the functionality and expressivity in our hands, purely based upon the following points mentioned above.

How did this fascination come about?

Growing up in Singapore, I grew up alongside 3 major different races and cultures - Chinese, Malay and Indian. The first dance I performed when I was in Kindergarden was a Chinese Fan and ribbon dance. Within the Classical dances of these 3 traditions, the hands and fingers play an important role in helping the dancer to express themselves and movements. Within Classical Indian Dance for example, hands and gestures is a prominent movement vocabulary in Kathak & Bharatanatyam. Known as mudras, they are symbolic hand gestures within Hindu and Buddhism rituals.

Taken from https://bharatanatyam.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/samayukta-hastas-or-double-hand-gestures-in-bharatanatyam/ It made me think about how we use our hands in Classical Ballet and Contemporary Dance. In Classical Ballet, the fingers are often relaxed, with the thumb connected towards the 3rd finger to achieve that elegant line from the shoulders - elbows - wrists - fingertips. In Contemporary Dance, the function of the hands are so versatile, from supporting our body weight in floorwork/capoeira to holding a powerful grip during partnerwork.

In the context of choreography, examples of bodily manipulation would include refinement, variation, exaggeration and extraction, according to the needs in composition by the choreographer. Gestures, in itself has behavioural content, but aesthetically manipulated to achieve a certain enhancement to the movement. Whenever I have the opportunity to choreograph, I always play around with gestures and how it enhances the movements. For instance, with [02:10], a section was created through just creating a phrase of gestures. As I work collaboratively with my dancers, Will, Satoko and I spent a session sat down and talking about their fondest childhood memories. Through that, we created a phrase of gestures that subsequently became starting points or directions of energies that affected the rest of our body.

During a conversation, I am always drawn to how the other person gestures when he/she speaks because their hands often reflect the subconscious behaviour and feelings of the person that cannot be processed through words. The potential to transform un-formed thoughts into action fascinates me. It fascinated me so much that I did my Master's Thesis on it!

Additionally to exploring the potential of expressivity in the hands and fingers, I am intrigued at how the hands can help find new ways of connecting and co-ordinating movements between the precise and the delicate. Through this, I would also like to adopt a mindful approach, highlighting that hands also has a role to play in determining pathways, and self-expression.

Somehow, the word "mapping" comes to mind. The lines mapping the palms of our hands , our hands mapping and navigating through surfaces, the sense of touch mapping an individual with our environment. Drawing and connecting existing ideas and feelings with it. This is an ongoing research and movement exploration, but one that I am going to continue exploring and researching. I believe that people will be able to gain something valuable from this movement exploration - "Mapping with Our Hands".