Gestures with a Purpose in Storyelling Hey, it's one thing to talk with your hands and be all Italian and everything, but it's quite another to use gestures effectively. This workshop will help you see different ways that you can really make your gestures count! There are 3 aspects to using gestures effectively. 1. First, you have to VISUALIZE the image (this applies, of course, to ALL of the senses). I told you we'd be coming back to this over and over again! You must visualize things in clear, specific ways and CONCENTRATE on them. It's not enough to say, "she lived on a big farm" and to see a big farm. You've got to see the cows and pigs and chickens running around. You've got to see the wheat and alfalfa growing. You've go to see things in detail, even if you don't describe the farm in your story. You need to see things that your audience doesn't see. Savvy? 2. You must COMMIT to the image. If the image is important enough to mention, it is important enough to really help the audience see it. Images need tender loving care! Commit yourself to really communicating the image, even if it is only 1 second long in your story. 3. You must POLISH the gesture. Pare the image down into as small a package as you can. You want to communicate your vision, but you also don't want to give the image more attention that it deserves. Figure out how important it is, and this will help you figure out how much time and energy to devote to it in your story. The following activity will help you see what I mean. Below are several sentences. Say them out loud, and follow the guidelines above to make the sentences come to life. Make sure each set of images gets clear, concise gestures. We'll do the first one together: "On special occasions, she would line up the kids, one by one, along the wall of the huge room and give a cup of hot chocolate to each of them." In the above sentence, there are several images that need some TLC. Can you spot them? First is "she"—probably a woman. Is "she" mean? nice? demanding? army-sargeant-like? tender? loving? Decide this and this will let you know how her body would be like. Then you can show us with your own body's stance and gestures what this "she" is like. Next is the act of lining the kids up. The natural tendency is to vaguely motion to a wall—but this isn't communicative enough. In one gesture sequence, what are some ways you (as "she") can line these kids up along the long wall of the huge room? Giving a cup of hot chocolate is a special treat that deserves a special gesture. Once again, you need to decide how the cup of hot chocolate was given. Was it handed to them tenderly? kindly? gruffly? And remember that kids are shorter than adults are, so when you give the hot chocolate out, your stance and gestures should reflect the height of the children. Remember also that we still need to see the attitude of the "she" through all of this, too. Here are a few more sentences from a few of my students' stories in the past. Perform each of them—professional quality—at least 5 times. It takes at least 5 times to be able to see things clearly and to polish. Find a quick and communicative gesture for each image in the sentence. You don't want the sentence to drag, so say it at a normal speed and just make sure each image is quick, clear, and flows to the next image. "On Christmas Eve, after she put the kids to bed, she made a big batch of cookies, hung the stockings on the hearth of the fireplace, and put the decorations on the tree." "My grandpa did pretty well on his farm, but when the Depression hit in the 1930s, he lost all of his money at the bank when it failed." "Early the next morning, Rooster went outside and waited for Dragon to come back to return his beautiful horns. He waited and waited. But Dragon never came back." As with all skills, this one relies once again on visualization!