Data and analysis files for a silent gesture study in which hearing English-speaking participants have to communicate about a set of video events using only gesture and no speech. The video events participants communicated showed objects being using in a typical or atypical way and were designed to elicit either verb-like (typical events) or noun-like (atypical events) productions. Participants took part either as individuals, where they produced gestures for each event in isolation over 3 rounds, or in dyads. Participants in the dyadic conditions took part in three rounds: firstly, an improvisation round in which they produced gestures for each event in isolation, an interaction round in which they used gestures to communicate about each event with a partner, followed by another improvisation round.