India, Shiva as Lord of Dance (Nataraja), c. 1000, bronze, Norton Simon Foundation.
Nothing in the Norton Simon Museum’s galleries actually moves. For two hours on Saturday, August 15, 2026, the museum will ask a room of children to find the motion anyway.
The program is called Dancing Through Art, it runs from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., and it is designed for families with children ages 4 to 12. Among the works participants will explore are ballerinas and a bronze Shiva as Lord of Dance, caught mid-step, made in India around the year 1000.
Participants will look at how artists capture movement, then strike poses themselves and make their own depictions of dancers, the museum said. They meet in the Entrance Gallery.
The program is free with museum admission, and the museum encourages advance registration. General admission is $20 for adults and $15 for visitors 62 and older. Children 18 and under, students with valid identification and museum members enter free, as do EBT cardholders, visitors who are legally blind, and caregivers accompanying visitors with disabilities. On Saturdays the museum is open from 12:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., with final entry at 6:15 p.m. for non-members or visitors without tickets.
The museum’s 19th-century wing holds many of Edgar Degas’s depictions of dancers. In 1977, two years after the museum opened under his name, Norton Simon bought 69 master casts of Degas sculptures — a set the museum describes as the only one cast directly from the artist’s original wax and clay statuettes. The museum added to it last fall with Arabesque over the right leg, left arm in front. Emily Talbot, the museum’s vice president of collections and chief curator, said in a press release announcing the October 2025 purchase that the acquisition “honors Norton Simon’s commitment to collecting Degas’s works.”
A free family guide is available at the Admissions and Information desks.
The museum is at 411 West Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, 91105, and can be reached at 626.449.6840. Parking in the museum lot is free, with limited free parking on adjacent streets and accessible spaces in both the upper and lower lots. An entrance ramp sits to the right of the main stairway, and a second serves the lower-level lot. Elevators connect the museum’s two levels, and a limited number of wheelchairs can be requested first come, first served at the Admissions and Coat Check desks. Pasadena Transit lines 10 and 33 and Metro line 180 stop in front of the building; the closest Metro Rail station is Memorial Park on the A Line, at 125 East Holly Street.
The Shiva bronze was not built to stand still either. Two holes are cut into its base. Poles once passed through them, according to the museum, so that bearers could support figures like this one on their shoulders and carry them from temples into the surrounding neighborhoods. On August 15, the children will supply the motion.
NEED TO KNOW
Dancing Through Art, a Family Day program for families with children ages 4 to 12, takes place Saturday, August 15, 2026, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Norton Simon Museum, 411 West Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, California 91105, with participants meeting in the Entrance Gallery. The program is free with museum admission, which is $20 for adults and $15 for visitors 62 and older, and free for children 18 and under, students with valid identification, museum members, EBT cardholders, visitors who are legally blind, and caregivers accompanying visitors with disabilities; advance registration is encouraged. Parking in the museum lot is free, with limited free parking on adjacent streets and accessible spaces in both the upper and lower lots. For more, call 626.449.6840 or visit nortonsimon.org.
Program page:
https://www.nortonsimon.org/calendar/2026/summer-2026/Dancing-Through-Art-8-15-2026-100PM
