Calder's Circus (I Think Best In Wire)

This game was designed for the Gaming Like It's 1929 jam.

Make circus acts from wire and tell the stories of how the dress rehearsal preview was magnificent... or disastrous. For 3-6 players taking 1-2 hours (depending on player count).

Introduction

Alexander Calder was never without a spool of wire and pliers when he left the house. He liked, as he said, to think in wire.

In the late 1920s, he created a series of wire sculptures and portraits, culminating in his 1929 work Cirque Calder, which he presented in Paris as an improvised circus performance with more than 70 wire and wood figurines.

The performances would include complete narrative scenes of the various circus acts that he acted out, choreographed, and directed. Music and lighting enhanced the experience for spectators, who would sit on crates or low furniture, eating peanuts, and using the noisemakers Calder provided, simulating the audience experience of a real circus of the era. Each show could take up to two hours to complete.

In this game, players will re-create Cirque Calder as builders, performers, spectators, and storytellers.

Most importantly, the players will work with acts they build themselves from wire.

Equipment needed

• Roll of wire, stiff enough to hold a shape but easily bendable by hand. (See rules for more information.) 
• Wire cutters suited to the wire. One pair is likely sufficient for the table to share.
• Small pliers. A few pairs are useful for making tighter bends in the wire but can be shared.
• Blu Tack or other sticking putty to help stand figures up.

Child-friendly version

Instead of wire, use pipe cleaners/chenille stems. They are colourful and easier for small fingers to bend. You probably won’t need the pliers but an adult might want to cut the pipe cleaners if needed.

Designer notes

Added a little after publishing, I've included some detailed designer notes that discuss how I think about the Public Domain Game Jam and how that fits with my philosophy of game design. The majority of the notes are about why I made many of the decisions I made about the game, based on playtesting experience combined with a conceptual approach.

Downloads

The downloadable files include the brief rules document, a supplementary explanation of many circus skills and acts, as some are likely unfamiliar to players (but this is a good chance to discover more!), and a play example with photos and descriptions from actual play sessions. The designer notes are a separate file.

Previous Public Domain Game Jam submissions

This is my sixth year submitting to this series of jams. If you're interested in what I have done previously, you can see the following:

The 24th Kandinsky: Make your own Kandinsky painting as a collage of his 1924 work.

Fish Magic: Paul Klee's surrealist painting Fish Magic (1925) becomes a playspace for using random and deliberate word choices, combined into magical morsels of fishy fishness.

Dreaming the Cave: Two people explore a surrealistic dream connection to continue a partnership between avant-garde Czech artists Toyen and Jindřich Štyrský beyond Štyrský's early death using Štyrský’s 1926 painting, Jeskyně (The Cave) as a playing canvas.

Tower Tree Stories: Players explore the relationships and connections between the graduating students of Greensburg High School 1927. They will tell stories of the students based on their yearbook entries, but digging beyond the words on the page.

Solar Storm 1928: Players each build and maintain a Dymaxion house, based on Buckminster Fuller’s original 1928 plans. Meanwhile, solar activity threatens to disrupt and damage the houses based on actual scientific data measured at the Mt. Wilson observatory in 1928.

There were also a couple of lighter games based on newly-public domain material.

Drinks with Archibald, Wassily, and the Gang: It's been 96 years between drinks. So put on your best hat, choose a cocktail from ages past, and make sure your tablecloth remembers the night. Make cocktails and paintings from a 1926 cocktail recipe book and the images of Wassily Kandinsky and Archibald Motley.

Now I Am Six Again: Take a journey, both physical and imaginative, through A. A. Milne's beloved children's book Now We Are Six. Christopher Robin Milne, his son, has annotated his father's copy with ways to re-experience six-ness. You'll be asked to imagine, dream, wander, and even sneeze as you read through the annotated poems, for a contemplative escape to a happy childhood, one you can reclaim as your own.