Ballets de Catalunya is a Catalan folk-dance group founded in 1953 with the aim of reviving and disseminating traditional Catalan folk dances. At the end of the sixties, Ballets de Catalunya entrusted master image-maker Domènec Umbert with the creation of a group of eight big heads for performances of the “balls de nans”; dances with festival figures with large heads. There are models of four couples representing the different areas in the Crown of Catalonia and Aragon: the couple from Aragon, the Catalan couple, the couple from Mallorca and the couple from Valencia. Each pair is carefully dressed in the traditional clothes of the region.

These figures, which Ballets de Catalunya almost always uses on stage, usually dance the Ball de Nanos de Reus. Occasionally, however, they perform at festivities and celebrations that the folk-dance group takes part in, such as the carnival procession float from Esquerra de l’Eixample, on which the big heads play a starring role.