Marc van Bulck (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} marc_van_bulck) wrote,@ 2009-02-23 20:21:00 |
|
Marc's unashamedly dorky post-magic-show recap!
So, the magic show was this weekend here at the seminary, and it was seven different shades of awesome and fun. It’s dorky as all hell, but I can’t help it. Mock me if you must, I shan’t be deterred! I freaking love magic!
So, sorry folks. I’m just going to spend this entire post gushing about the magic show and how much fun it was and talking about the pieces in the show. Just figured I’d give you fair warning in advance.
The turnout for the show was pretty good considering the weird scheduling during the conference. The show was performed in the Harrington Center Auditorium which is an intimate lecture auditorium with a stage. We wound up having about 80-100 folks show up for the show, which is about 2/3 capacity, and the whole front row was filled with children. I was a little nervous about this because I knew I was going to be doing some dangerous stuff, but the crowd seemed very excited, supportive, and determined to have a good time, which was really nice.
I got to try out a lot of new material this year, which was pretty cool. Vanishing Coke Bottle was the opener. It's an old-as-dirt stage piece, but I've never done it before, and it was cool to do. May carry that one over again in the future. Might not. Cut-and-Restored Rope is one of my favorites to do, and I did an extended version of that routine with some added sleights and flourishes that I liked a lot better than the version I've been doing.
This was also the first time that I’ve had an assistant in the show! Laura, who’s one of the first-year students was my assistant, and she was really great. The assistant part was only in two bits, and they’re mostly comedy bits. For example, during the show I make a red handkerchief disappear using sleight-of-hand and ask the audience if they want to see how I do it. I explain that I have to slow it down to show them how it works, and I proceed to do the trick in “slow-motion.” Laura runs onstage in slow motion, and I throw the handkerchief to her, and she catches it, She “hides” onstage in comic fashion. Then she “runs” back and gives it back to me, and the handkerchief “reappears” in my hands. It’s super camp but lots of fun, and the audience seemed to like it. I may try to add more to the assistant part next year.
The only trick that went kinda haywire was sawing-in-half. A friend of mine brought his soon-to-be fiancé and asked me if I would saw her in half. I picked her for the piece but then realized too late that she was WAAAAY too thin for that frame, and if you were sitting in the dead center of the audience, I’m pretty sure you could look right into it and see the method. No one from the audience mentioned anything about it (either they were being polite and didn’t want to say anything, or they didn’t notice), but my magician friend in the audience confirmed this for me. Note to self…
Escaping from a straight jacket to a punk rock cover of “Hava Nagila” may have been the most fun I've had in a magic show.
This was also the first time in two years that I’ve left “Time Travel” out of the show, but I just felt like it was time to give it a rest. It’s a really great piece (Spak collaborated on creating the original method, and I've revised it since, and I’m currently working on an even more revamped version of it), but I’ve done it so many times now that I don’t want the audience to get tired of it.
Instead this year, I did a really dangerous new piece called “Razor Blade Roullette,” and I got some GREAT feedback about it afterward. I’m blindfolded through most of the trick, so I can’t see the audience, but according to some friends of mine, folks were covering their eyes, and one friend of mine mentioned that one of my exes was in tears during it. Damn!
Interestingly to me, all the children that showed up in the audience seemed eerily fine with it. I think this encourages my theory that really young folks can handle a lot more than they’re given credit for (although this is certainly not a trick I would do for a "kids' show"). It looks much scarier than it actually is and it’s really not that dangerous at all, but I really tried to play up the drama of it, particularly after it was over, but I may pull that one out of the mothballs later on down the road.
The last piece I did was a new piece I developed this year called “Psychic Improv.” The piece involves an improv scene and some audience mind reading, and it utilizes some principles in magic that have been around for a very long time. It was pretty cool, and the audience responded well to it, but I’d like to maybe develop that one a little bit more. It feels like a work in progress.
The only thing that struck me as kind of weird was during the card magic portion in the middle. I did a card prediction piece in the show where I write a prediction down and seal it in an envelope. A spectator shuffles the cards, selects one, puts it back in and shuffles the deck again while my back is turned. I turn around and try to find the card, only to “screw up” several times. After she finally tells me what her card is, I ask her to open the envelope, and there’s a large piece of paper with the prediction of her card on it. It’s a trick I’ve done for years and years and years (it’s one of my favorites), but after the show I got several comments from folks saying, “Marc, didn’t you realize she’s engaged?”
I didn’t know she was engaged, as a matter of fact, but I wasn’t sure why this mattered. I didn’t flirt with her onstage or anything (at least, not that I'm aware of. Some magicians like to do this, although I generally don’t). I just asked her to help out with a card trick, but several people mentioned it later after the show. Note to self: According to seminarians, if you’re engaged or attached, helping out with magic is off limits.
So much fun. I really wish I could do this sort of thing more often. This would be a really fun regular gig.
TTFN
-Marc
P.S. UPDATE! We also filmed the whole thing, so I may try to post a few clips online if I can.
So, the magic show was this weekend here at the seminary, and it was seven different shades of awesome and fun. It’s dorky as all hell, but I can’t help it. Mock me if you must, I shan’t be deterred! I freaking love magic!
So, sorry folks. I’m just going to spend this entire post gushing about the magic show and how much fun it was and talking about the pieces in the show. Just figured I’d give you fair warning in advance.
The turnout for the show was pretty good considering the weird scheduling during the conference. The show was performed in the Harrington Center Auditorium which is an intimate lecture auditorium with a stage. We wound up having about 80-100 folks show up for the show, which is about 2/3 capacity, and the whole front row was filled with children. I was a little nervous about this because I knew I was going to be doing some dangerous stuff, but the crowd seemed very excited, supportive, and determined to have a good time, which was really nice.
I got to try out a lot of new material this year, which was pretty cool. Vanishing Coke Bottle was the opener. It's an old-as-dirt stage piece, but I've never done it before, and it was cool to do. May carry that one over again in the future. Might not. Cut-and-Restored Rope is one of my favorites to do, and I did an extended version of that routine with some added sleights and flourishes that I liked a lot better than the version I've been doing.
This was also the first time that I’ve had an assistant in the show! Laura, who’s one of the first-year students was my assistant, and she was really great. The assistant part was only in two bits, and they’re mostly comedy bits. For example, during the show I make a red handkerchief disappear using sleight-of-hand and ask the audience if they want to see how I do it. I explain that I have to slow it down to show them how it works, and I proceed to do the trick in “slow-motion.” Laura runs onstage in slow motion, and I throw the handkerchief to her, and she catches it, She “hides” onstage in comic fashion. Then she “runs” back and gives it back to me, and the handkerchief “reappears” in my hands. It’s super camp but lots of fun, and the audience seemed to like it. I may try to add more to the assistant part next year.
The only trick that went kinda haywire was sawing-in-half. A friend of mine brought his soon-to-be fiancé and asked me if I would saw her in half. I picked her for the piece but then realized too late that she was WAAAAY too thin for that frame, and if you were sitting in the dead center of the audience, I’m pretty sure you could look right into it and see the method. No one from the audience mentioned anything about it (either they were being polite and didn’t want to say anything, or they didn’t notice), but my magician friend in the audience confirmed this for me. Note to self…
Escaping from a straight jacket to a punk rock cover of “Hava Nagila” may have been the most fun I've had in a magic show.
This was also the first time in two years that I’ve left “Time Travel” out of the show, but I just felt like it was time to give it a rest. It’s a really great piece (Spak collaborated on creating the original method, and I've revised it since, and I’m currently working on an even more revamped version of it), but I’ve done it so many times now that I don’t want the audience to get tired of it.
Instead this year, I did a really dangerous new piece called “Razor Blade Roullette,” and I got some GREAT feedback about it afterward. I’m blindfolded through most of the trick, so I can’t see the audience, but according to some friends of mine, folks were covering their eyes, and one friend of mine mentioned that one of my exes was in tears during it. Damn!
Interestingly to me, all the children that showed up in the audience seemed eerily fine with it. I think this encourages my theory that really young folks can handle a lot more than they’re given credit for (although this is certainly not a trick I would do for a "kids' show"). It looks much scarier than it actually is and it’s really not that dangerous at all, but I really tried to play up the drama of it, particularly after it was over, but I may pull that one out of the mothballs later on down the road.
The last piece I did was a new piece I developed this year called “Psychic Improv.” The piece involves an improv scene and some audience mind reading, and it utilizes some principles in magic that have been around for a very long time. It was pretty cool, and the audience responded well to it, but I’d like to maybe develop that one a little bit more. It feels like a work in progress.
The only thing that struck me as kind of weird was during the card magic portion in the middle. I did a card prediction piece in the show where I write a prediction down and seal it in an envelope. A spectator shuffles the cards, selects one, puts it back in and shuffles the deck again while my back is turned. I turn around and try to find the card, only to “screw up” several times. After she finally tells me what her card is, I ask her to open the envelope, and there’s a large piece of paper with the prediction of her card on it. It’s a trick I’ve done for years and years and years (it’s one of my favorites), but after the show I got several comments from folks saying, “Marc, didn’t you realize she’s engaged?”
I didn’t know she was engaged, as a matter of fact, but I wasn’t sure why this mattered. I didn’t flirt with her onstage or anything (at least, not that I'm aware of. Some magicians like to do this, although I generally don’t). I just asked her to help out with a card trick, but several people mentioned it later after the show. Note to self: According to seminarians, if you’re engaged or attached, helping out with magic is off limits.
So much fun. I really wish I could do this sort of thing more often. This would be a really fun regular gig.
TTFN
-Marc
P.S. UPDATE! We also filmed the whole thing, so I may try to post a few clips online if I can.
