The Platets are the two child skeletons positioned on either side of la Bandera. Each carries a plate of ashes and helps maintain the Dance of Death’s cross-shaped formation. Their small stature contrasts with the strength of the symbol they display.
Ashes as a symbol
In a Christian reading of the group, ashes recall the body’s fragility and its return to dust. The presence of children and adults can reinforce the symbolic reading that death reaches every age. Serrà places the Platets’ children at around seven or eight in the period she describes: a historical reference, not a present-day age rule.
Gesture and coordination
Serrà describes two alternating movements in 1996: when the child faces la Bandera, he raises the plate and points to the ashes; when facing the spectators on his side, he draws his arm in and rests his free hand on his waist. Both Platets perform the same gesture, but not simultaneously.
They must stay aligned with la Bandera and follow the Tabal’s rhythm. Arm positions and spacing between the dancers form part of this coordination: the group’s visual strength depends on each dancer’s attention to his place.
Keeping the ashes and avoiding confusion
The book describes ways of retaining the ashes during the jumps: dampening them and, in the period observed, fixing them to the plate’s base. It also records spectators leaving coins, mistaking the gesture for begging. The plate displays a symbol; its purpose is not to ask for money. These practices and incidents belong to that period.
Behind la Bandera, the Clock completes the five dancers with another warning: we do not know the hour of death.
Sources and context
Màriam Serrà, Verges i la processó que no es veu (1998), pp. 131–133; account of the Procession observed in 1996.
