We had a blast last Wednesday during Inner Magic Club’s monthly magic competition. The occasion was exciting for two main reasons.
First we had lots of guests, mostly magic enthusiasts, hobbyists and avid lovers of magic. Almost all the clubs of magicians in the Philippines had representatives, but it was our brothers in the art from the Story Circle who came in droves.
When something is floating, the first thing that comes to the mind of the lay people is “string”.
In my experience, a performance of the Zombie Ball would sometimes invite children and adults to comment, “It’s on a string!”
Every time I hear this comment, I let go of all my inhibitions, comfortable in the thought that the audience is on the wrong track in figuring out the trick.
I’ve heard other magicians in the Philippines lamenting about the overexposure of IT magic. They claim lots of people know about it.
This is to continue my thesis on the subject…
Movement - This is the way a performer conducts himself in front of his audience.
As a general rule, a magician must aspire to natural movements. Magic is not really about speed, where the hands try to outstrip the eye. Rather it is about naturalness. Natural movements deceive the eye more than speed.
George Mamonluk first broke the sad news to President Cris Castro last Friday. In turn, I received the news from Cris at around 11 PM of that day, while I was watching the progress of the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament.
IMC Treasurer Eddie Ching died in the early morning of June 26, 2009.
The following day, George made the formal announcement to the magic community via bulk email:
After I wrote On Building Routines, Ernest of The Story Circle dropped me a line on the comment section: Let me quote him:
Good day, Sir Leo! Thanks for this article of yours. Surely it will help every magicians who have read this like me. Just like to request if you can write or make an article on the “basic notes or alphabet of magic”? Thanks again Sir Leo! Waiting for more articles that will help magicians like me.
By the way, is it ok if I can share this to fellow TSC members?
Magically,
Ernest (The Story Circle)
My response was a promise to write the article he requested. Today I’ll fulfill my promise. I hope Ernest and many magicians in the Philippines will find this post helpful.
Today I’m gonna keep my promise. As a magician performing in the Philippines, I usually don’t keep my word, but today I will.
A few days ago, I said I would give my readers the list of a magic performance’s “natural boring moments” that have the potential of putting people to sleep.
You can find the list below. It’s not a complete list. You may want to add to it. I’d appreciate it if you would, because I’d like to know your experiences on this matter.
Before I rattle off the list, let me explain first what “natural boring moments” are.
I always believe that performing magic is difficult.
Many magicians in the Philippine, especially novice performers, would disagree with me. As a result, hordes of amateurs and tyros and dilettantes and neophytes and greenhorns and everything in their radius of influence perform magic for lay people an hour after they learn a trick’
Okay, I’m exaggerating. They perform new magic minutes after they buy a new prop.
A few months back, reader Greg Itliong requested that I wrote articles about children’s magic. The truth is, this blog contains already several articles on the subject of kids’ magic. One has only to search the archive to find them.
I presume Greg is a beginning magician wanting to break into the field of entertaining children with his own brand of Philippine magic.
One of the frequently asked questions by beginning magicians is how to routine one’s magic act.
Let me answer it with an extended metaphor.
Julie Andrews (playing the character Maria in the movie The Sound of Music) said that if you learn the seven notes “that happen to be”, you can use them to write an entire song.
In the same manner, if you know your alphabet, you can write words. If you can write words, you can write sentences, then paragraphs, then a novel.
To take the analogy farther, if you learn the basics of performing magic, you can build not only routines but probably also a whole evening show. read more…
I may not be a cool person, but let me suggest a few cool ways to handle the magician’s archenemy—the heckler.
When you are heckled during a performance, don’t engage the heckler in a debate.
We are entertainers, not members of a debating team.
Don’t compete or debate with a smart aleck in the audience. Competition will only motivate him to try to trip you up.
Debate is not entertaining, so don’t be tempted going into one.
People must like you in order to appreciate your entertainment. A performer who debates and engages a heckler in bitter verbal tussle will only create resentment instead of improve his likability quotient.
Wow! I can’t believe it. I just wrote a series of one-liners and one short paragraph. I’m being stingy with words today.
Leodini
