| Archive for The Magicanada Project A Place For the In-Depth Discussion of Magic By Magicians Worldwide! |
| BrianMillerMagic |
The R.A.D. Approach to PerformingHello all,I am offering here an excerpt, in fact nearly the first two pages, of the essay The R.A.D Approach to Performing from Cards, Coins, Thoughts & Theories (Part 4). The meat and depth of the piece is of course in the remaining sections following this excerpt. This is just to give you a little taste of CCTT (Part 4). If it seems interesting to you, head over to www.brianmillermagic.com/Products and check out the video trailer. The offers I extended to Magicanada members earlier in a different thread still apply, but I will soon close those offers, so if you want to take advantage of them, do it soon! "The R.A.D. Approach to Performing Preface “I don’t want to see any of your tricks. I want to see magic.” A father said this to his young son, who was only just beginning to learn the basics of magic. Such an idea is simultaneously poetic, wonderful, and terrifying. Is it within a magician, like you and I, to show magic to our audiences? Or can we only show them something that closely resembles what magic might look like? To understand the very core of what I am writing about, you must first know my personal definition of magic: Magic is the process by which a person can genuinely believe in something that they know isn’t true, even if only for a moment. In this spirit, my performances have only one goal: every member of the audience must experience at least one moment, no matter how brief, during which they are ready to check the very notion of reality as they have known it their entire lives. This may sound like an extremely bold goal, and it is. It is that split-second moment of internal conflict that I strive for in each and every performance. I am quite certain that I do not always achieve it; in my humble opinion, however, it is a goal worth working towards. Introduction This is perhaps the most ambitious piece of writing I have embarked on in my career. The goal of what you are about to read is to provide a structured formula for a magical performance, regardless of audience size, performance venue, or genre of magic, that can be put into practice by the amateur and professional magician alike. This is the performing philosophy that I have been personally utilizing for years, yet have never taken the time to sit down and collect all of the thoughts on it in a coherent manner. I sincerely hope that this meets and even exceeds your expectations. What is R.A.D. you ask? It is not just a nifty acronym. R.A.D. stands for Respect, Acceptance, and the suspension of Disbelief. All in all it is a three-step formula to be put to use while performing for an audience in order to successfully present them with a true magical experience. It is my belief that magicians too often assume that they have given a magical experience to an audience when in reality they were simply entertained, at best. Do not misunderstand me; entertaining the audience is incredibly important. I would in fact concede that it is my job to entertain first, perform magic second. But whether you believe that ‘magic’ is our top priority or entertaining is our top priority is trivial for the purpose of this essay. The R.A.D. approach to performing, as I stated, is about nurturing the audience in order to put them in a state of mind where they are susceptible to experiencing a true moment of magic. Step One: Respect Before you can hope to achieve anything with an audience, you must first earn their respect. No, respect is not automatic; it must be earned. Let us taking a strolling gig as an example. The moment you walk up to a table and announce, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, my name is so and so and I am the magician,” you now officially have one strike against you. Almost anytime you announce that you are a magician to a new audience, you have put yourself in a natural disadvantage. It is a simple fact of our job that people generally have negatively pre-conceived notions about magicians. For some reason, people who have actually seen a magician live seem to have always had a negative experience with one. If they have not seen a magician live, they have heard horror stories about them. I have no idea how these opinions are formed or where they started, but we must remain mindful that they exist. So when you approach an audience for the first time, not only do you have to earn the respect of total strangers, but because you are a magician you have to work even harder for it! There are certain things that you can do immediately to earn a new audience’s respect. Before I mention some of them, please do remember that you are working under a time limit to gain respect. In my experience and from what I have seen and heard from plenty of fellow working magicians, you have only the first thirty seconds upon introducing yourself to earn that respect. If you have not earned it in thirty seconds or less, and you will know this when it happens, then you might as well end your set right there because you will likely not make any significant progress with that particular audience for the rest of your performance. Note: I am not in any way advocating walking away in the middle of a set if you sense that you have not earned an audience’s respect. One thing that has been said countless times in our history that I feel needs to be repeated here is: smile! A reassuring smile right at the introduction will win over an audience more often than anything else you can say or do. Simple things such as directing your attention to one or two audience members to ask, “How are you tonight?” or shaking hands can be equally as beneficial. Anything and everything you can do that is personable, just like making a first impression at a job interview, will help earn respect. Another extremely important key to earning respect is to be confident. Carry yourself in such a manner that suggests that you are a pro at performing magic. Now it does not matter if you are actually a professional, a part-time pro, or merely a hobbyist. The audience will always be able to make an immediate distinction between a confident performer and a nervous performer. Command their attention with a strong yet personable voice and keep your eccentricities to a minimum at the very start. Do not fret; if you have a very strange, eccentric performing style, you will have plenty of time to let that shine. You should just tone it down until you have got the audience’s respect in order for them to be able to appreciate what it is you do, and how you do it. And this brings me to the second step. ... " |
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| Liam |
Re: The R.A.D. Approach to Performing
!!! that was my father, to me! 
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| BrianMillerMagic |
I've heard it on a number of occasions teaching young magicians. It always made me think... | ||