You VS. The Audience

[Luis Vega]

Heya, my name is Anna and I have been talking with two of my guy friends about theory an awful lot. The first guy who is a grizzly bear is all about theory and we get into constant debates (friendly ones though) about theory in magic with the audience and magician.
The other, who looks like a panda bear is a phenomenal performer and totally agrees with the grizzly bear on this subject.
What is the subject? The material that a magician picks to perform.

This all started when the grizzly bear was helping me out with a coin routine and suggested a pull instead of a regular vanish. I agreed with him the pull would look more magical in the sense that the coin is gone and I can show both of my hands clean however I try to refrain from pulls and such because I frankly don't like to perform with them and trust a piece of elastic and what not to do something I can do already in my hands. Besides in the routine I need to make the coin reappear. So in my head it seemed too much if I make it vanish like that when I am meant to make it reappear. I couldn't show both my hands empty then.

This got a debate going of what the magician wants vs. what the audience wants. I told grizzly that it conflicted with my style and what I want to do. I take pride in my slight of hand. Even a layman can use a pull and get the same effect, but a laymen cannot make a coin vanish, do a hand wash and then make it come back at the fingertips.
Once panda came along for the weekend we all talked about this. I felt a bit heavy when they both agreed with each other in the fact that………It is NOT about what the magician wants but it is about what the audience wants and wants to see.

I felt they both had fine points however they were too extreme in my eyes. It is good to do tricks that the spectator likes however if you only do those tricks you won't have fun yourself.

Think about it. Why did you get into magic, you might have been impressed and wanted to learn magic but what kept you in magic was the fact that it is fun as hell to do. However, you pick certain effects over others depending on what you want to perform.

Even Aaron Fisher in the T11 beginners video says you should do magic that you like to do.

My friends had a great point however I feel that there are two ways to look at this. 1–If you do magic the spectator likes then they will be happy. 2–If you do magic you like, the audience sees that you have fun and so they are more inclined to have fun.

What do you think? Have you encountered this before? I believe we can find a middle ground which is the magician doing tricks they like and because it is magic the spectators will like the magic too. What do you think?

Hello Anna..I´ll drop my 2 cents on this...

Of course you can find a balance...but it´s advisable to find or use tricks you love and the audience love...not tricks you like and the audience don´t like...you cannot enjoy a performance if you are not doing tricks you enjoy, even if the audience is going crazy about it, you are not going to feel good...

that´s why is so hard to create a repertoire, since you need to enjoy it and make the audience enjoy it...it´s not a balance, is having both at the greatest extense...

About you using gimmicks...as a lot of people have said before me...there is nothing wrong or lame of using gimmicks...there are a lot of tricks you cannot do, even if you are a demi-god with sleight of hand...I myself use a lot of gimmicks but I never stop practicing my sleight of hand...

 

[Luis Vega]

I think the name of the tittle should be change for "ego vs. Audience"

There is a ton of sleight of hand crazyness routines that I like, (Wich I practice for fun) but when someone asks you to see a trick, they are in other words asking you to "show them something they may like". People are egoistical in nature, they don't care if you like the trick or not, they want to have a good time enjoying what they prefer.

I pretty much agree with theater head, in other words, is about them, not about you.

And in my point of view, I actually enjoy when they enjoy something, even when is the simplest trick ever, not when I pull off a super complex routine that I like that fools them badly. There is a difference between fooling and making them enjoy something.

Wey!! extrañaba tus posts!! saludos!!