Saturday, November 19, 2011

Madison Children's Museum

For two days, Tiny Circus landed in the wonderland of imagination and play known as the Madison's Children Museum. We set up shop in the heart of Possible-opolis, right next to the Hodgepodge Mahal, an indoor jungle gym made from salvaged and repurposed materials. 
 
Entire families were engaged in the animation station whiteboard extravaganza. Participants would grab a marker and draw a tree growing, rain drops dropping, or sometimes wiggly patterns, juggling insects, or an octopus swimming, and then we'd all step back, take the shot, and again, draw or erase a bit more.
 
Perhaps you can tell: it was Halloween. This is the first ever tiny bunny to participate in a Tiny Circus animation. All animals are welcome, of course.
 
We projected the shots onto a small screen, so we could watch the amorphous whiteboard animation as it was being created.
 
That evening we played our animations at the Museum event, Beakers and Broomsticks, for a rotating cast of costumed children and adults. (The History of Ghosts and Ghost Trap were in the line-up that night.) With so much going on in the space (black light painting, dancing, slime making), luckily people were drawn into our room by snacks, and stayed for the animations. Hard to beat popcorn + candy corn + Tiny Circus animations. We also debuted the animations created by the students we worked with at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.