With The Sign Dance, Learning A TikTok Dance Can Really Help To Promote Inclusion

Mar. 25, 2022

Thanks to the efforts of the Ente Nazionale Sordi (ENS), which has always been active in integration projects, in 2021 the Italian Sign Language (ILS) was recognized as an official language. 

Despite this important milestone, there are only about 100,000 Italians who know or use ILS: mainly deaf, their hearing family members, and interpreters. 

In order to make ILS more and more an everyday language and take another important step towards integration, the ENS, CGSI, and DLV BBDO have created the first project that transforms TikTok ballets into a fun and immediate way to bring people closer to Italian Sign Language.
The agency Omnicom PR Group joined the project to amplify its communication through PR and Digital PR activities.

The goal of the campaign is to make available to hearing people a series of expressions in ILS useful in everyday life. To do this, some phrases taken from the most famous musical hits (of today and yesterday) will be "choreographed" with the signs and facial expressions corresponding to their translations into ILS. In this way, it will be enough to dance to have the first contact with ILS.

The phrases chosen will refer to different areas: from love to friendship to the first meeting.

Giulia Ricciardi, creative director on the project comments in the note:

 "A project that intercepts a trend and turns it into a positive message."

 

Carlo di Biase, ILS professional and ENS associate adds:

"When they first told me about the project I sensed the brilliance and intelligence of the idea. It was a pleasure to collaborate for a cause I feel so close to and in such a fun way."

 

The decision to use TikTok stems from a simple insight: besides being the most inclusive and most used social network by the new generations, ballets and choreographies have always been among the most shared and viewed content. The parallelism with ILS was therefore immediate and spontaneous.

Starting to learn a new language has never been so much fun: let's teach and sign!

Follow the channels and dance in ILS:

https://www.tiktok.com/@thesigndance

https://www.instagram.com/thesigndance/