Calder's Noise: A Cirque Calder Listening Session
Fri, Mar 6, 2026
7 pm
Louisa Calder with Cirque Calder (1926-1931), New York, c. 1942. Photograph by Fred Hamilton © Fred Hamilton. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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Floor 3, Theater
"In all there are about twenty acts with an intermission, peanuts, and exotic gramophone music played by my wife, who is an excellent conductor, and with the sounds of a tambourine, cymbals and a cardboard pipe for making the lion roar..."
—Alexander Calder
To celebrate the final days of High Wire: Calder's Circus at 100, join us for a rare opportunity to explore the sonic dimensions of Calder's art.
Composer and musician Gryphon Rue and composer and archivist Michael Mandeville share the music of Calder's Circus, or Cirque Calder in French, through this unique listening session. On a gramophone much like the one that Alexander Calder used in the 1920s and 30s, they will play selections from Calder's record collection, which ranges from classic marches and waltzes to so-called exotica and popular jazz tunes from the day. They will discuss the under-known yet critical role that sound and music played in Calder's performances of the Circus. Influenced by his relationship with the international avant-garde and attuned to the specificity of place and milieu, Calder approached acoustics in the Circus in ways that reveal previously unseen aspects of his artistic sensibility.
Speakers
Michael Mandeville is an archivist and researcher at the Calder Foundation in New York City. He is also a musician and composer.
Gryphon Rue is an artist, composer, and musician based in New York City. His approach fuses collage, improvisation, and the recombination of materials and recordings to build works in both sound and image.
