The Dance of Fantastic Animals

“The Dance of Fantastic Animals” is an activity aimed at early childhood education students, especially I4 and I5. Through body expression, participants learn to identify some of the animals represented in the Museum’s artworks and to approach the symbolic meaning of representations in paintings and sculptures.
At the welcome moment, the educator introduces the Museum and presents the children with a fictional story featuring fantastic animals as protagonists. The first part of the activity then begins, consisting of a tour through the Museum, stopping in front of selected artworks and identifying the animals represented. Each animal has an associated movement, referring to its most distinctive traits, whether real or symbolic. Thus, in front of each creature, what is known about it is reviewed and new features are learned.

After practising the movements of each animal, the second part of the activity begins. The students go to the workshop room, where they will find materials to create an animal mask. Once completed and dressed as the animals seen during the visit, they leave the workshop and head to the first floor of the Museum. In the Saló de l’Arc, a spacious and open room, students are arranged in groups according to their masks. Then, sitting in a circle, all participants learn and dance the dance of the fantastic animals with the movements they have learned, accompanied by music, in order to remember the Museum’s animals through this dance.