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We use our hands to explore the world around us; to manipulate and change it; to communicate; to signify aggression, submission or gratitude; to comfort or arouse; to make music, craft and create. We point, punch, tweak and text. We ball our fists, spread our palms, give someone the thumbs up and close our hands in prayer.

More than anything else, is it our hands which make us human?

In this series considers the human hand from five different angles: manipulation, creativity, gesture, communication and touch. In each programme we hear from people who have a very particular perspective on hands and the way we use them, including a surgeon, a massage therapist, a harpist, a blacksmith and the recipient of a hand transplant. Each of them takes a long look at their own hands, describes what they see and considers the relationship with the world which their hands give them.

As we encounter healing hands, steady hands, talking hands, holding hands and the laying-on of hands we come to understand just how much our hands identify and define us.

In the third episode we examine the importance of gesture, both in religious faith and in the performing arts. Sr. Gemma Simmonds of the Congregation of Jesus considers the different ways Christians use their hands in prayer and worship, while Fr. Christopher Hancock reflects on the way he uses his hands as a priest – from key moments in the Mass to the anointing of the sick and dying.

In Islam too the position of the hands in ritual prayer has particular significance. As Dr. Abdul-Azim Ahmed of the Muslim Council of Wales explains, there are also many references to the hands in the Qur’an - including the symbolism of the right and left hands.

Gesture is also an important part of the performing arts, particularly in South Asian classical dance. Acclaimed choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh considers the vocabulary of hand movements – mudras – which express meaning and emotion in the style of dance she trained in, Bharatanatyam, and how these have inspired her current work in contemporary dance.

Producer: Jeremy Grange

Photograph courtesy of Tim Booth

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