Built on the collaboration between teachers, children, and their families, in 2013 Graner – Mercat de les Flors, supported by the IMEB (Barcelona Municipal Institute of Education), launched the Body and Movement 0–3 Project to introduce dance and movement into early childhood education, eventually working with 15 nursery schools across Barcelona. The project centered around a concept of dance rooted in the child’s free, natural, and spontaneous movement.
Based on the premise that movement is essential to development in early life, we view the child’s evolving physical and motor abilities as a dance sequence—a phrase of movement that begins lying on the back, close to the ground, and ends in upright standing. This process also incorporates many foundational elements of dance language (such as different types of locomotion, spatial levels, directions, pathways, and trajectories).
The core components of the project were:
- Training for educators: providing tools, resources, and content through hands-on training, enabling educational teams themselves to promote and nurture the language of movement and dance in children aged 0–3.
- On-site mentoring in the schools.
- Artistic experiences in the classroom.
- The work plan unfolded gradually over the course of three academic years, allowing for increasing trust and permeability with each school, which in turn made it possible to deepen the practice and implement real changes in how the body was approached in early childhood education.
The program was coordinated by Montserrat Ismael and Gemma Palet.