I wonder how much live performance you've done? I seem to recall that you did some kind of theater stuff, but now I'm wondering if that's someone else.
A bit beside the issue. But if my credentials are being questioned, here they are slapped out onto the table. True I don't perform magic much in front of real people, mostly because of a personal standards. But instead I work as a stage hand for several local theatrical productions, a stage manager for one of the top haunted houses in America, an understudy for a Sea World show, and a singer in a production put on by Sea World for their Christmas season.
That doesn't include my non paying jobs as a volunteer horror actor in independent film, improv horror actor for the haunted house (I'd rather get paid hourly as a stage manager than get actor pay, which is a set pay per night otherwise known as theater pay), scenic consultant for community plays as well as set fabrication.
Yes I don't have as much experience performing parlor tricks, however I do have many other talents that supersede most of my peers in the field of magic credentials. I'd like to discuss show production and how we as a community can integrate these techniques to further our supposed art, not toot my horn for my own muffled arrogance.
Yes, people on TV can act and draw us in, but they are acting with each other and they have take after take to get the proper feeling or whatever. Soap operas have notoriously terrible acting and ridiculous story lines.
Shouldn't we as performers do multiple takes in rehearsal so that what we do becomes muscle memory and get that perfect feeling each time we step out onto our stage? Sure, sometimes you have a bum show, something goes wrong live and you really can't do much to fix it. But if you know your show well enough you will be able to take steps to cover and make it seem like the mistake was actually all part of the show and go unnoticed by your audience.
The opinion on Soap Operas is objective. Which is fine! I respect opinions but in the context of this situation I felt it was just as unnecessary as passive aggressiveness toward my credentials as a person in the field of performance art. I don't have the ability to say I've had an illustrious performing career and suspect many people on here don't either. Just remember:
Does this need to be asked?
Does it need to be asked by me?
Does this need to be asked by me right now?
*An adaptation of a good Craig Ferguson quote.
A stage actor that ignores the audience entirely will not connect with them and will not put on a very good show. You have to read the energy of the room and work with it. If you ignore the audience entirely you'll inevitable end up delivering the wrong energy for the crowd.
As an actor, it isn't the performer's job to connect with the audience, it is the character's job. An actor plays the part and breathes life into a character. They connect through their story, through the events that happen around them, how they react to that situation, how they are human in a fictional world. Magic isn't real, but it is real to the character that is portrayed in front of an audience. It is the actor's goal to help the character they are playing to draw the audience in to suspend their beliefs and join the character in a world where magic is real.
But that brings up a dilema, since the magician’s character most likely will have to directly interact with audience members there is a degree of unpredictability. You as the magician offstage will have to analyze the show and change the character you portray slightly or take note of what to do in certain situations. If the character you play on stage has a very dry sense of humor and it seems to work with some audiences but not others, then you need to rehearse something that could be of use as an actor to win back your audience and pull them back into the story you are acting out.
Many magicians do present their work as plays. But the best ones do it in such a way that they are still bringing the audience into the act. Watch Teller perform Shadows live. He gives subtle hints to the audience that they are experiencing this wonder along with him. Personally, I don't think the show should be about the magician at all. It's all about the audience. Standing up there showing people what you can do is boring and inartistic.
Teller is interesting, he doesn’t verbally interact with anyone while on stage. He uses pantomime to show and not tell what he is about to do. I don’t need to see this performed live to see the power it has through video media (which incidentally supports my claims that youtube could be the next form of media to self publish magic specials). Personally I do not agree that it a performance be completely audience focused. Teller is focused on sadistic act of dissecting a flower with a knife while sharing that moment with the audience allowing them to watch as it happens.
If you have no character and it is just a person on stage pulling doves out of their sleeves or putting girls in various different boxes I believe they are hurting magic instead of pushing it forward. However, if you stage your character correctly you could pull off just that, standing on stage and showing your audience what the character can do. As long as the magic presented fits the context the character would be in and there is a bit of story to act as the glue to hold each effect and demonstration of mystery together.
And bringing this back on subject. How can someone relate to flourishing? What is there to relate to? Nothing. It is just a display of skill, and humans become accustomed to such things very quickly. You watch someone throw a knife twenty feet and hit the bull's eye once, it's amazing. Watch them do it again and again, and you quickly begin to expect it. It's not interesting any more.
If I watch a knife thrower throw a knife at a bullseye and hit it dead on that is impressive. But if that same sword thrower does the same thing a second time the same way, it’ll be impressive but not as impressive as the first time I saw it. This is true, but a real showman can turn this skill into something fresh and exciting. Perhaps they add a 2nd knife and throw it two handed and then next two knives from one hand. Then maybe juggle three knives and while juggling throwing each blade at balloons and popping each one. Now, what if for the finale they add a human being into the act to stand as an obstacle?
Honestly tell me what I just described wouldn’t be impressive to watch. It is the same skill, just with added variation. Yet the core skill of throwing a knife with great accuracy is the core effect. Sort of like the Acrobatic Card Routine, it is a card that appears at the top of the deck in an increasingly impossible manner. Houdini is plastered in history because of one core skill, escapology, specifically escaping from handcuffs. He succeeded because he was a brilliant showman! He knew how to draw sensationalism to his acts of escapes.
Apply this to cardistry and you could have a very good potential showcase! Add a bit of flare to a card trick through cardistry to enforce the idea that you are skilled when it comes with cards if the character isn't a strictly “it’s magic” sort of character. True cards don’t play very far on stage, but that isn’t to say that methods couldn’t be invented to make it work. Jumbo cards, fluorescent backed cards, more aerial moves rather than the tight finger contortions, larger movements, integrated dance and body movements, numerous different things to make card flourishing seem much larger than it actually is.
That's why everyone that sees an acrobat says the same thing, "Can you do a back flip now?" Then if you do a back flip, they say, "Now do two!" Or every juggler has heard, "Can you juggle another one?"
Displays of skill aren't all that interesting beyond the first few encounters with said skill, unless you're someone who also works on that skill as well.
It is not fair to use blanket terms, especially since I have a great respect for the circus arts and history. One thing I would not do if I were to meet a previous cirque performer is to ask them to demonstrate their skill. They aren’t performing monkeys, they are people who have dedicated their life to their art. I almost feel that the word dedicate isn’t a powerful enough word to convey the amount of work they do.
This brings me to a point that I touched near the beginning of the post. I don’t perform because I hold myself to very high standards. I used to perform magic for random strangers and families, however I put an end to that after I was asked almost constantly. I’m not their puppet boy and I felt the fact that I was showing tricks willy nilly was doing a disservice to the magic community as a whole. It was cheapening it, so I stopped and decided to focus myself on other things. I’ll only perform magic in formal venues or in a designated area that is considered a performing area. A place where the people watching are expecting to see something funny, mysterious, strange, or horrifying! Never on the streets when I’m not in my character. Never on stage when I don’t have my character presence switched on and most definitely never when I feel an effect that I perform feels out of character or not committed to muscle memory.
Anyway that is all the time I got, time to get in some Black Ops gaming before work.
Keo
