Commenting through gesture

At the August Carapace I noticed some gesturing from an audience member during one of the stories. First the gestures were used to express the audience member’s interpretation of what might have happened in part of the story, and later to ask a question. I find this to be very interesting audience participation and feedback. First, it wasn’t directed at the storyteller, but at other audience members. It was a kind of side conversation. I don’t think the storyteller was even aware of it. Second it speaks to a limitation of this kind of “conversation.” Storytelling is a mostly one sided conversation. Audience members do “speak” back to the storyteller through facial expressions, laughter, applause, and occasional other exclamations (like “oh!”). But they don’t get to guess aloud what is happening next or ask questions like a listener might be able to do when swapping anecdotes with a friend. Especially interesting in this case was that the audience member was at the table right next to the stage area, facing out, towards the rest of the audience. So although the storyteller probably didn’t see the gestures, they were almost as visible to the rest of the audience as the storyteller (the gesture-er may not have realized this). Perhaps audience members sometimes desire so badly to speak that their comments and questions spill out as gestures. Or perhaps there is something else going on here that I can’t infer just from observation.