The Magic Life
May 15, 2012 Leave a Comment
+10The Dani DaOrtiz Workshop – Sun 29/04/2012
May 2, 2012 4 Comments
What an amazing day! Having been a fan of Dani for a couple of years now you can imagine how excited I was to attend this workshop. Dani was incredible – fooling the hell out of all the magicians who attended with his loose relaxed and incredibly disarming handling. He was also really really funny and the day included many magician fooling moments and reveals which he’d been setting up since the start – incredible. I’d seen the Utopia DVDs so knew a lot of the material but a lot of the people attending had never seen his stuff before – I can only imagine how much their brain hurt on the way home afterwards.
The day started with him doing a 30 minute or so performance which warmed him up and had everyone geared up for the day. This followed with some explainations of the effects he had done. The rest of the day consisted of 2 or so hour long talks about various topics (classic force, knowing yourself and other tricks) with breaks in between. At the end of each session he tended to do something which fooled everyone – the best for me was shuffled deck held under the table by the spectator – they choose top or bottom several times and transfered cards from one place to another – eventually three cards were inserted face up in the deck by the spectator under the table. The deck was placed in the box and Dani named all three cards! It seemed incredibly fair and he gave the magician so many choices and opertunities to change his mind etc. – it was classic Dani DaOrtiz – magic that happens without him seemingly doing anything.
Another great example was a card at any number he did where the card was the 8 of diamonds and was at position 17 – after the reveal he asked to borrow a deck and the organiser took his out from under his chair. He opened them and counted down 17 cards – the 18th card was also the 8 of diamonds but was also face up! He’d set this up at some point but no one knew how or when – incredible. There was also an opertuniuty for a smaller group of us to sit with Dani during one of the breaks - he was doing some killer things with a glass and nailed me with a cards across routine – his timing is so good you just miss everything!
For me the highlight was the theory – having just re-read Ascanio’s “Structural Conception of Magic” these ideas were fresh in my mind – to see Dani explain and then to put the thoery into practice was amazing. One thing I think the Ascanio book lacks are a few more examples to explain his theories – Dani was able to fill in the gaps. Knowing yourself, naturalness, in-transit actions, timing etc. were all mentioned and applied to the effects he was doing.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough but praise must also go to the organisers of the event which was held in the Ibis Hotel near to Euston Station – they did a fantastic job, the venue was great and they’d taken the trouble to arrange the tables and chairs so that every one of the 32 or so people attending could see perfectly – the third row consisted of raised stools so you could see over the top of the two rows of chairs in front.
If you get the chance to see Dani in action then don’t miss it!!
+20The classic force
April 14, 2012 1 Comment
How not to do it -
Very tense mechanical handling and you can really notice the speed up when the spectator goes to take the card.
How I think it should be done -
Natural causal spreading – much more deceptive.
00The Semi-Circular Switch
April 11, 2012 3 Comments
A really cool little move found by John Racherbaumer published in Richard Kaufman’s “Card Magic”. Have a look if you have the book – you might have overlooked it.
+2-1Derek DelGaudio
April 10, 2012 Leave a Comment
The best card magic videos I’ve seen online since discovering Dani DaOrtiz – amazing stuff, make sure you watch all 5.
What I love about it is his causal relaxed handling – there’s a complete lack of tension when doing the work that makes it incredibly deceptive.
+30The YouTube generation is here
April 7, 2012 9 Comments
As most of you all know I visit a magic shop in Sheffield every few weeks and over the past year or so I’ve noticed that although the shop is getting busier and busier (which is great and shows that the current magic trend is helping magic dealers) there are more and more young magicians attending who literally get all their knowledge from YouTube. This is something that many magicians have discussed in the past and I imagine there’s tons out there on this subject but although I’d read a few peoples thoughts on it, I’d never had any real first hand experience. Until now.
Last weekend there was a young lad who I’d not seen there before and who I think has been coming for a few weeks – he was a beginner but not afraid to perform and had a few tricks which he’d been working on (a collectors routine and one or two others). Anyway, after a while two other young lads arrived and within minutes one of them was trying to teach the first youngster six or seven different passes! He couldn’t do any of them himself but had watched YouTube videos and learnt them from there. No appreciation of the move, it’s history or anything – just very poor execution of the sleights – they almost seemed like throwaway things for him – “Oh yeah there’s this Spread pass, Herman pass, etc.” The first lad was overwhelmed as this other guy was explaining each and every pass in detail – the poor guy couldn’t even do a Charlier cut! Is this the next generation of magic? Don’t get me wrong there are many talented young magicians who appreciate magical history and learn and study their art but the growing number of online magicians does worry me.
I asked the first lad what books he had – his answer – none. I think this is a real shame and I hate to see people learn magic in the wrong way. The latest craze of one trick magic downloads doesn’t help as it gives the idea that things can be learned quickly in an “instant” download. Places like Ellusionist and Theory 11 make it even worse – encouraging a culture of online “creators” and fooding the market with custom playing cards – it’t not the tool you should be focusing on but how to use it. The internet’s a great tool but public magic forums are mostly flooded with nonsense and all the other sites are about making money. Magic should be learned slowly and in steps – the old adage that you have to walk before you can run is cliche but fits here. That’s the real problem – the internet gives you vast knowledge instantly and people new to magic won’t know where to start – they just jump in and learn all they can. The problem is there’s no context in which to put the thing they’re learning, they don’t appreciate it’s true value because it’s easy to find and readily available.
I do think that older magicians are slightly to blame also – we should be mentoring the beginners and pointing them in the right direction – giving them advice, tips, books to read etc. This is something the guys in Sheffield to really well and explains why there’s so many great magicians there and a great magic scene. Those guys I mentioned above, if they continue to visit the shop and hang out with other magicians, will eventually get the right idea.
Most magicians tend to look down on the younger guys who are struggling to find the right path in magic- it’s not 100% all their fault that all they can find online are YouTube explanations and bad one trick downloads. It is if they’re uploading the explanations themselves which is another topic altogether. Where possible, magicians should teach other magicians one on one in my opinion. Magic clubs should also play an essential role in teaching the next generation. This is something I admire about the Spanish School – there’s a sense of passing on the knowledge, of teacher and student. The british magic clubs I’ve been to don’t even come close to this.
Luckily one of the guys I’d seen before had bought Royal Road on my recommendation and was really enjoying it. There may be hope…
Anyway, rant over – I hope some of this made sense and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter – lets discuss…
+30Dani DaOrtiz workshop
April 6, 2012 3 Comments
Further to my previous post and after giving it some thought (it was a no brainer really!) I’ve booked it. Very excited.
+10
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