Cinq Figures errantes unfolds as five wandering figures, each tracing a different pathway through gesture, vibration and resonance. Rather than remaining confined to the keyboard, these figures migrate across the physical material of the piano — keys, pedals, wood, metal and keyboard cover — so that the instrument gradually reveals itself as an expanded resonant body.

Amplification, through microphones positioned beside the keyboard, brings normally peripheral vibrations and acoustic traces into the foreground. Slides across unpressed keys, half- and randomly depressed keys, key and pedal percussion, blocked and released keys, and the opening and closing of the keyboard cover allow the performer’s hands, nails, palms and feet to move continuously between conventional playing and direct contact with the instrument.

Across the five figures, fragments of melody, music-box-like textures, low-register resonance, percussion and increasingly concentrated counterpoints of gesture appear, disappear and return in altered forms. Their wandering is therefore both physical and musical: gestures travel across the instrument, sounds pass between pitch, noise and resonance, and fleeting materials continually transform rather than settling into fixed identities. The amplified piano becomes at once keyboard, percussion instrument, resonant body and space for choreographed movement.