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Hi, heres one for everyone, do you consider yourself a magician first or an entertainer first?

By this I mean, do you strive to create the impossible over entertainiing people with jokes and magic second?

I consider myself a magician first, and I will try to make the impossible happen.

What about you?

Entertainer, that is the whole point of magic. To amaze and entertain the audience is a great skill that needs to be built up with experience. It is no good doing the most amazing and flashy tricks you can do if the audience do not enjoy it.

Good point

Both

Derren Brown has some interesting ideas about this in Absolute Magic,

Lots of other good stuff too

John

You can be a magician without being an entertainer. To use magic as a medium for entertaining others is to take magic to a different level.

Did I say that? Sound very proverbial

Both, BUT,

entertainer first. If you are a good magician, but don't entertain, whats the point? People will remember you as a bore.

If you are a good entertainer and do magic, people will think you are brilliant, even if your magic isn't mind blowing.

I'm biased, because I admit I will never be a great magician. If I can work on my performance, to entertain people, they will think I am a good entertainer and magician.

Only magicians expect other magicians to be great. Lay people want to be entertained.

Consider something like a rope routine. It isn't spectacular, but with the right routine, people will enjoy that as much as someone doing 50 fancy cuts, shuffles, fans, then finding their card appear in the magicians shoe.

OK, you will say cuts etc aren't magic. You still learn them to attempt to entetain people. Or SHOULD do anyway. Sometimes do you do it to show how clever you are?

NB, this applies to other routines, so please don't take offence if you do cards. I did it when I didn't know better with a childs sucker effect.

Darrel wrote:Both, BUT,

entertainer first. If you are a good magician, but don't entertain, whats the point? People will remember you as a bore.

It worked for David Blaine

I'm still a beginner but I think i'll be leaning more towards the entertainer side.

Neither. I'm me, whatever that is.

I've been dragged from pub to pub since this afternoon, getting bought drinks and being made to perform like a monkey. I gave up on the cards other than mental effects and ID and went for clean mentalism and readings once my hands finally got too drunk to shuffle.

I'm gongto regret this in the morning, but I've got some smart party invites.

The more I think about the shoddy work I've done today and the more people believed it, the more I want to vomit. Odd that. Anyone else had that feeling?

Ask your self where your priorities lie. If your focus is on the magic, you're a magician. If you want to entertain people you're an entertainer.

Personally, I think its dangerous to place the focus of any magic performance on the magic itself. It will just become a case of showing off.

Derren Brown has some interesting ideas about this in Absolute Magic

Indeed he does, and I remember he uses an anecdote of watching an actor to illustrate his point. In summary the actor wasonly acting for self gratification. All he wanted was to feel better about himself by performing, and hearing the applause. Speaking in general terms, if that's your focus in performing magic, you can politely drop off the face of the earth because your not doing yourself, or the art of magic, any favours.

GoldFish wrote:Indeed he does, and I remember he uses an anecdote of watching an actor to illustrate his point. In summary the actor wasonly acting for self gratification. All he wanted was to feel better about himself by performing, and hearing the applause. Speaking in general terms, if that's your focus in performing magic, you can politely drop off the face of the earth because your not doing yourself, or the art of magic, any favours.

Wasn't the anecdote about accepting criticism too, though?

Yes, you're right, but I think its applicable in this instance too. I didn't want to use Derren's words exactly, because they paint a rather vulgar (but accurate) picture, but just to illustrate the point:

Derren Brown wrote:When he recieved applause at the end of a number, he seemed to visibly swell as he absorbed it. The performance would have been far more honest, and equally revolting, if he'd climbed up on stage and masturbated for an hour.

when you are in front of people, they are watching you to be entertained. how you entertain them... that is a different question. you could sing, dance, pull a rabbit from a hat... but your job is to entertain.

as a magician, you dont necessarily need to "crack jokes" to entertain... although humour can often enhance one's performance, and be entertaining. however so can bewilderment, amazment, surprise etc.

if you do magic for "art's sake" only, best you make your audience a mirror. so for mine, the best magician's are entertainers who's skill in PRESENTING the magic art i find extremely entertaining.

It has to be enetertainer first. You can amaze people with clever tricks for so long, but after a while, they will lose interest. The key is to fit the magic into an entertaining routine.

The long and short of it is that people only watch magic because they want to be entertained. Yes, clever trickery can be quite entertaining in itself, but in my opinion, it isn't enough to make a performance truely memorable. You need more of a human element for that.

Think of it this way:

The Royal Shakespear Company is a group of very talented professionals who push their technical acting skills to the limit in order to perform classic theatre in the way that it was meant to be delivered.

The cast of Eastenders (a British soap, for those of you who don't know) rarely push their acting ability to the limit and provide light hearted, easy going entertainment.

Now, which one do you think pulls the biggest audience? (Clue - It's not the RSC)

There is a direct analogy to magic here, if you think about it.

True, BUT - and I am being pedantic here - many more would rather watch TV than be bothered to go out to see a play. Plus it's so much easier to just switch on the TV and be entertained. As well as that your analogy is making the assumption that Shakespeare is not entertaining...I could go on but I'll stop .

I see your point though - I've had people run away screaming thanks to a few D/Ls and an engaing presentation. But I also agree with Bobby Cat - if the magic is strong enough (not necessarily hard to do) then it CAN stand on it's own for a while.