Carnaval: Artistic Creations
Objective
As a result of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Describe artistic aspects of Carnavals in Northeastern Brazil
- Create a mask of his/her own and/or design a “fantasia” (costume) for a specific Carnaval celebration
Material
- Video of the Bezerros Carnaval.
- Pictures of elements of various Carnaval celebrations
- Videos of mask making (no sound)
- Pictures of masks
Activities
- Explain to the class that, while there are many aspects of Carnaval that are similar, each city in Northeastern Brazil has elements that are unique to their celebrations.
- Download and play the video of the Bezerros Carnaval. (Although the narrating is in Portuguese, all students can see the aspects of Carnaval celebrations, including the Papangu.)
- Direct students to focus particularly on the masks and costumes in the video.
- Following the video, display the pictures of various Carnaval celebrations.
- Ask students to describe how the artistic elements enhance the festivities.
- Download and play the video of mask making.
- Following the video, display the pictures of masks.
- Explain to the students that masks symbolize the Carnaval celebrations, and that they are now going to create their own masks/costumes for Carnaval!
- Using the visual images provided, direct students to design a mask or fantasia (the Portuguese word for a Carnaval costume) that would fit the Carnaval celebration.
- Direct students to write several paragraphs describing the design and explaining how it fits the city for which it was created.
- For art classes, if you actually want students to create a mask, a lesson plan for mask-making can be found at www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/high/Stephanie-masks.htm.
