Or, a few reflections on individuality and creativity.
The point of this article is to encourage us magicians not just to perform the tricks we buy in the same way we have seen them performed. Even if you don’t bother reading this article, watch the YouTube clip of Yann Frisch. Here is an outstanding performance on so many different levels.
But what I love most about this routine is not the flawless sleight of hand (even though I know what must be happening it is beautiful to behold). What I love most about this routine is the fact that of all the one cup and ball routines I have ever seen (and I have seen many), I have never seen one like this. It is his routine. There is much to admire – a story is told (in an international language), a character is explored, and there is some stunning magic. But above all it is his routine.
It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it
Now excuse me as I go into a well-worn rant. But how many times do you (or if you’re not prepared to be that honest, does your friend at the magic club) open up a new trick, watch the DVD that comes with it, and then perform it word for word, move for move, as you have seen it on the DVD? I’ve done it myself so I’m not pointing the fingure in any kind of superior way. But I want to encourage us all to try a little harder.
As I have said before, probably more than once, one of the things I love about learning magic from a book rather than a DVD is that generally (unless it is a highly scripted and detailed description of the effect) you are less influenced by the performance style of the creator. In fact it has been my experience (and that of others I am sure) that sometimes you can misinterpret a written instruction and come up with your own unique wrinkle or variation on the effect which makes it more your own.
Many a book or article on presentation have caricatured the performance of the magician who’s first effect is in the style of David Regal, his next in the style of Jay Sankey and who then turns into a pale imitation of Eugene Burger for his finale. [Of course some people avoid this particular danger by ripping off a whole act – but that’s a whole different story] They remind us that one of the key things as a magician is to find your own style and let that permeate your whole routine.
That is true and helpful advice, but my purpose in this article is to focus on the more narrow topic of developing your own presentation for a single effect.
The problem
My hypothesis is that the majority of non-professional magicians (and perhaps a surprising proportion of those who are professional) don’t bother trying to develop our own presentation. Sure – if we perform a trick often enough we might find a few of our own lines start to stick and become part of it – but more often than not we just do it as we first saw it done – either on the DVD that came with it, or on the YouTube clip we saw, or even the performance of the magician that showed it to us.
My additional assumption is that for most of us this is simply a question of laziness. I’m not quite bold enough to say that we don’t love our art enough – but I do think that many of us settle too easily for less than is possible.
There is another way…
The trouble is that it is hard to be creative. And I don’t by that mean that it is beyond the reach of most of us, but simply that it takes time and committment. It means spending some time thinking carefully about the routine. And that really means asking ourselves some good questions. Why am I doing this? Is there a story or plot that holds it together? What is my motivation for this move? How could I structure the effect for more impact? Does it fit with another routine I already do?
Most of the people that come up with new magic and effects are actually people that are good at asking these kinds of questions – and it is often on these journeys of discovery that new effects are formed.
But for many of us this kind of creative and analytical thinking doesn’t come easily. And we lack the discipline to sit down on our own and put in the hard work. So here is my top tip for this. It is really obvious but to my mind it transforms everything.
Find someone else to do it with
Two people are required to perform a well-known and sensual Spanish dance and, they say, two heads are better than one. And two people – well, in fact, more than one person – makes all the difference in the world to creativity.
All the top magicians of stage and screen have creative teams who help them develop their material. All the great close up magicians love to ‘session’ – and these spaces for the sharing and critiqueing of ideas are the places where the real magic is done.
Let me describe an example of how this process has worked for me. I had a new (to me) commercially available effect. Instead of learning the routine which came with it I took it to a friend for a session. I showed him some of the possible moves with the prop but deliberately didn’t show him any kind of performance of the effect (which, helpfully, he was not familiar with himself). And then we played. We explored what other moves were possible. We joked about the props and what they reminded us of. We thought about the different effects possible and how they could build towards a routine. We laughed about lines we could use. We hapened upon little subtleties and convincers which could be incorporated into the routine.
And over the course of about an hour we came up with the outline of a routine that worked for me. There was a premise and a ‘logic’ to the routine – it had a pleasing circularity or framing so that there was a clear finish to the routine. It fitted with my character and performance style. And best of all it looked nothing like the routines I had seen before. Now don’t get me wrong, after an hour, this still has plenty rough edges and is a ‘work in progress’. But having bounced ideas around with that friend I now have the bare outline of something I can go off and develop and perfect more easily in my own time (there is still no substitute for practise and of course real-world performance to finally hone something). But we’d done the hard work together.
It helps that we have a similar view on what makes a good magic trick, though in fact quite different personalities and approaches to performing – so we bounce off each other well. And that we trust each other – I’m not going to go and steal his routine or he mine (we couldn’t pull it off even if we wanted to – our personalities are so different) – so we have a lack of inhibition in sharing.
So, in the interests of seeing some more individual performances, can I encourage you to phone a friend? Or in fact to go out to the pub or round to someone’s house and bounce some creative thoughts off one another. It will be good for your performance and it will be good for magic generally. And if you don’t know any other magicians then consider joining a magic club…
Here endeth the first lesson. And I’m allowed to say that, ‘cos I’m a reverend – see?!