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An invitation to discover the meaning of small gestures


What connects humankind across various languages and other differences? Sister and brother Selma and Sofiane Ouissi focus on the body, which tells a story like an archive of lived experiences.


In the piece Le moindre geste, they invite the audience to ‘listen’ to a storyteller in an unusual way by paying attention to the small gestures in between the words.


The makers collected multiple life stories in recent years. People told them about the events that shaped them. Each story is the basis for a collective movement. Each performance is different: each time, a new group of local participants will embody two stories, without knowing those stories themselves.


Because sight and sound are separated, the participants can only convey the storyteller’s physical gestures. The audience sees this collective movement and hears the storyteller’s story. It is in this indirect way that the body language is given extra emphasis: the individual gesture becomes collective and is an invitation for empathy.


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  • Le moindre geste © Sofie De Backere

    © Sofie De Backere

  • Le moindre geste © Sofie De Backere

    © Sofie De Backere

  • Le moindre geste © Sofie De Backere

    © Sofie De Backere

  • Le moindre geste © Sofie De Backere

    © Sofie De Backere

  • Le moindre geste © Sofie De Backere

    © Sofie De Backere

  • Le moindre geste © Sofie De Backere

    © Sofie De Backere

  • Le moindre geste © Sofie De Backere

    © Sofie De Backere

  • Le moindre geste © Sofie De Backere

    © Sofie De Backere