Gesture in Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky”

Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky” music video opens with a shot of Solange wearing a pale pink dress made of a trash bag and holding a bag filled with boxes over her shoulder. She stares into the camera, lips slightly parted, and her hand making soft caressing motions in the space in front of her pelvis. The scene then shifts between shots of Solange in various minimalistic outdoor landscapes. In each, she shifts her body positioning, and makes slow, deliberate, and subtle motions with her body. Later, we see shots of Solange in groups of other black women. In each shot, they lean on each other, creating a connected and intertwined mass of bodies. The rest of the video is interspersed with solo shots of Solange and group shots of her and the other women, painting an interesting contrast between solitude and community. 

The “Cranes in the Sky” music video is absolutely packed with gestures in the way Rodriguez conceptualizes them in “Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings.” For one, the video features multitudes of “specific corporeal articulations of fingers, thighs, and tongues, the movement of the living body and her parts.” Several of the shots in the video depict these bodily gestures: a flick of the wrist, a flutter of fingers, a slow blink. As Rodiguez highlights, “gestures are “always relational; they form connections between different parts of our bodies; they cite other gestures; they extend the reach of the self into the space between us; they bring into being the possibility of a ‘we.’” The scenes in this video both demonstrate a corporeal relationality, one that exists between parts of the body, but also an interpersonal relationality, one that forms a collective. In the group shots emerges a physical relationality in the intertwinement of bodies that also conveys a greater sense of communal relationality stemming from a shared female and black identity. In the gesture of a head resting on another shoulder, a hand enveloping another’s elbow, a chin resting atop another’s head, we can see the way they “extend the reach of the self into the space between” to form a collective. 

Similarly to the physical act of diminishing space between bodies, Rodriguez notes how “the political gestures we undertake—shouting back in defiance, marching in protest, even the passing of a digital petition from one person to another—enact the process of forging collectives.” In this way, we can read their physical relationality as indicative of greater political community building. Moreover, the interplay between solitude and collectivity in the video gestures toward the possibilities of communal healing. The solo shots reflect moments of introspection and alienation, while the group formations invoke a sense of mutual care and support. In these group formations, we see what Rodriguez might call a “queer gesture,” one that is “non-hierarchical, and centered in healing.” Altogether, this video paints a picture of the potentiality of gesture, both on an individual level and in the process of building collectives.