Gestus

By combining the use of a physical gesture and adding an attitude to that gesture, Brecht developed a technique that was able to tell the audience something about the story or character in a simple and quick way. I found watching the exercise that Ivory and Josh carried out between a person with higher status and a person with lower, really help me understand gestus in an extremely simple way. With a single gesture from both of their characters, their character's social standings were completely revealed to the audience, thus giving me a more detailed understanding of the characters and the relationship between them. 

I personally think gestus is a really powerful device as it can reveal so much to the audience in such a simple way. The gestures do not have to be over complicated and bold, they can be simple and subtle, yet carry so much depth to them. The gestures also mean you are able to communicate to the audience, not through vocals but through your actions and movements. This gives you another platform to present different political statements and ideas to the audience, such as the difference in status. You can connect to the audience in a different way, as you have to get them thinking about what the gesture may mean and then they can make their own interpretations - rather than just stating the meaning straight out. 

This technique is extremely useful for Brecht's preference to distancing the audience from emotion as it allows the characters to present idea's to the audience, without the actors having to feel the emotions of the character or present anything that may cause the audience to become emotionally entangled.