| If you've ever been to Italy and to some other countries, or some of their American counterparts who've had ancestors that emigrated here, there are plenty of folks who use quite a bit of gesturing. I had one French and English teacher years ago, Harvard trained who had escaped from Germany as a child during WWII, who did a lot of hand gestures, and he was absolutely brilliant. There have been some studies that show people who use their hands a lot are considered quite communicative, and people really learn from and remember them. I do notice in that Ella Logan clip I posted down below that she did gesture quite a lot, with practically every phrase (though not in an indicating way). It's also early tv, and that might have been especially magical in a big theater with her wonderful voice accompanying it. It depends, really -- some past famous singers like Edith Piaf would mostly not gesture too much, until perhaps the climax of a song, and then she would make le Grand Gesture. |