Performances, For Kids & Families, Weekend Festivals
Atrium Alive: Fantastical Creatures
Dragons, sea serpents and more!
Included with museum admission
Saturday, October 3, 2009 to Sunday, October 4, 2009 from 10:30am - 4:15pm, 11am - 4:30pm
Location: Atrium
The fantastical creatures in the museum's collection come out to play during this weekend of performances, artist demonstrations, live animal presentations and art making. Help make a monstrous sea serpent in the Atrium with renowned cardboard-sculptor James Grashow, whose work is featured in Trash Menagerie. Track down mythical and imagined beings in the galleries through tours, storytelling and a new family Gallery Discovery Kit.
TOURS
Family Gallery Explorations
Saturday, 10:30–11 am and 2–2:30 pm
Sunday, 11–11:30 am and 1–1:30 pm
Meet at the information desk
Reservations by October 1
Discover dragons and sea serpents lurking throughout PEM's collection.
COLLABORATIVE SCULPTURE
Sea Serpents
Saturday, 11 am–4 pm, Atrium
Sunday, 11 am–3:30 pm, Atrium
Help make a gigantic, 18-foot-tall cardboard sea serpent with Trash Menagerie artist and sculptor James Grashow. Grashow's artwork addresses themes of people, nature and mortality and varies in scale from monumental environmental installations to delicate, contained creations.
LIVE ANIMAL PRESENTATION
Snakes and Lizards!
Saturday, 11:30 am–2:30 pm, Atrium
Sunday, noon–3 pm, Atrium
See and sketch live snakes and lizards. Discover connections between these living creatures and mythical beasts.
DROP-IN ART ACTIVITY
Dragon Claws
Saturday and Sunday, 1–3 pm, Art Studios
Create your own dragon feet!
WEEKEND STORY TIMES
Meet at the information desk
For families with children ages 3 and up
Dragons at the Museum
Erik Rodenhiser shares exciting dragon stories drawn from Eastern and Western cultures.
Sea Serpents
Sunday, 11:30 am–12:15 pm
Listen to The Serpent Came to Gloucester, a rhyming tale that recounts the sighting of a mysterious sea serpent off the Massachusetts coast. Then, create your own sea monster map to guide your travels.
Bats at the Museum
Sunday, 3–3:30 pm
Purchase Tickets Now
Experience a lively storytelling inspired by the book Bats at the Library. Fold your own origami bat from recycled paper.
SATURDAY ONLY
ARTIST DEMONSTRATION
Sea-Inspired Creatures with Michelle Lougee
Saturday, Noon–2 pm, Atrium
Award-winning, mixed-media artist Michelle Lougee's latest works are futuristic sea creatures sculpted out of post-consumer grocery bags. Watch the artist in action and learn how to make your own art using recycled plastic bags. See more futuristic animals by Lougee in the Trash Menagerie exhibition.
ARTIST AS ACTIVIST PRESENTATION
Creature Feature: Futuristic Animals
Presentation Saturday, 2:45–3:15 pm, Bartlett Gallery
Purchase Presentation Tickets Now
Art making Saturday, 3:15–4:15 pm, Bartlett Gallery
Purchase Art Workshop Tickets Now
Reservations for both events by October 1
For adults and teens
Michelle Lougee's mixed-media artwork represents a futuristic vision of nature in reaction to human technologies. Lougee shares her inspiration and process, which have resulted in award-winning, evocative sculptures composed of found materials. With guidance from the artist, create your own vision of animal life using clay and found objects.
PERFORMANCE
Behind the Mask Theatre: Cat Mountain
Saturday, 3:30–4:15 pm, Atrium
Recommended for ages 5 and up
Cat Mountain tells the story of Sho, a young servant girl who journeys to a strange and far-off mountain where she hopes to find her freedom and her lost cat. But as the people she meets along the way tell her, no one has ever returned from Cat Mountain! Behind the Mask Theatre combines traditional storytelling with original masks, music, dance, puppetry, martial arts and other art forms. Lead artist Eric Bornstein studied with master mask makers in Bali and Italy and is known for his one-of-a-kind masks that have appeared in productions by the Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Ballet, Revels and First Night Boston.
SUNDAY ONLY
PERFORMANCE
Tanglewood Marionettes, The Dragon King
Sunday, 1:15–2:15 and 3:30–4:30 pm, Atrium
Recommended for ages 5 to 10
In The Dragon King, an underwater fantasy based on Chinese folklore, exquisite puppets tell the tale of a grandmother who journeys to the bottom of the sea.
PRESENTATION AND GALLERY VISIT
From Monster to Marvel
Sunday, 2:30-3:45 pm, Bartlett Gallery
For teens and adults
Reservations by October 1
Discover the myth behind the monster with right whale observer Kara Mahoney Robinson from the New England Aquarium. Serving as an educator and naturalist, Mahoney Robinson has been part of a massive effort to protect one of the world's most endangered whales. After the presentation, join her on a search for whales in PEM's Maritime Art Galleries.
CANCELED: PRESENTATION AND GALLERY VISIT
Monsters of the Deep with Richard Ellis
