The video workshop, dedicated to body and movement, focuses on nonverbal expressiveness to create new visual alphabets through hand gestures.
With the use of the double screen, black and white, the sign alphabet becomes choral, gestures multiply becoming a mixture of stimuli, conventions and codes. Accompanying the video are children’s voices that “list” the hand movements, but not in sync with the gestures to create a disorienting effect. In addition to the voice-overs, there is another sound element, the metronome, which in this case is used as a musical instrument.
The video is a tribute to artist Bruce Nauman’s For beginners (all thumb and finger combinations), in which his hands are raised in front of the camera and the fingers come to life according to commands he gives, continuing his reflection on the relationship between instructions and actions, between word-sound and movement.
The final video, the outcome of a path of collective participation, was made by Altreforme, over the course of 10 hours of workshop (5 meetings) with a group of 23 pupils, who experienced all the roles of performer, assistant director, cinematographer, prompter, voice-over, and with the active collaboration of teachers.