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Style is not a bad thing but I think style over substance is what magic suffers from. Forget you tube and the likes. Forget sitting around and saying the secrets the secrets. My precious my precious I don’t think that is the biggest threat we have to the art to me the biggest threat is that ofstyle over substance.

I once again agree with Marvell that magic should be magic first and a foremost. Take Jerry Sadowitz when he performed his comedy act in the 80s he was booked as a comedian at these shows and the magic was incedental to the show. Now take a magician doing magic the comedy should come second the first link in the chain is magic the second is the comedy or what ever. I think presentation and style are two very different things.

Personally I find the biggest threat to magic or any form of entertainment is a collective of people whom think they know what is best for it and demand it to have a certain structure or way of it should be.

All things move forward by change and this change is always forwarded by people who have a vision of how they wish to perform. This progress can be sometimes be looking back at the past and copying it with a modern edge or at other times with a fresh new approach but what is truly important is that the performer believes in what they do and wishes to communicate this idea to an audience. That is what art is and what performance is

I totally agree with you there Mark. Going back to my use of music and dance, these are just a way to perform the magic. The magic is what the people are watching and not the dance.

Some people can grab the attention with a story, Derren does it in his psychological way and I like music and dance. In all these examples the magic should be at the fore and the other stuff is just there to supplement it.

So we've just come back to what I said right from the start? It's not the style of magic that's the problem but the presentation of it.

Come to think of it the biggest problem with have is; the word MAGIC. This also don’t conjour (excuse the pun) good images in the audiences minds, its sounds rather childish.

To address Lommy Monster. If the type of magic is of WIZZARORIO the wonder man with his big yellow props and the likes but he presents it like Derren would Stylistically speaking he would be utter c*** (not the best). On the other hand if Mr Brown performed like WIZZARORIO he would get away with it more.

Lets take Nyman and Brown. Both present there effects under the same banner. But have different styles. The styles don’t molest the presentation as such but work well with it. The style and presentation must also be addressed.

Lets define a style. Are you wearing a top hat? A big bow tie are you using great big props. Or are you wearing a rather nice pinstripe affair and using props that you can hold?

Presentation is just that. Do you present your self has funny and remember we are magicians not comedians I do cringe when I see “comedy magic”.

I mainly present mental magic now days in a rather laid backed style. Lets see everything at as a chain well your performance :

Link 1, The magic
Link 2, the presentation
Link 3, the style
Link 4 and joining the first link the tricks.

Interesting point there Marky boy.

Thinking about it, if you say 'magic' to someone, they'll instantly have a picture in their head, if this be a top and tails illusionist, a blane style street magician or Derren Brown, they'll make their minds up from that very small part that comes into their heads.

It's kind of like saying do you like music? What sort of music? Rock, folk, jazz, classical, pop? No one likes all types of music and I'm sure that there aren't many people who don't like anything.

People understand these distinctions in something like music but not when it comes to magic.

You won't hear an average joe say, oh I don't like stage illusions. They'd say oh I don't like magic and that would be the end of it for them.

Unless you can expose people to different areas of magic, so that they can make this distinction I don't think that attitude is ever likely to change.

This is true magic to them is everything most people don’t know there are all kind of sub genres they think because you can do an ACR you can saw there wife in half. No one would ask Bob Dylan to play like Steve Vai would they now?

So taking us back to my first point. It is up to us to be an education that this is a rich and varied art as rich as literature and painting from the likes of Orwell right down to Dan Brown, Or Edward Hopper to Tracy Emin.

Emin ruins art for me. Like WIZORIOR ruins magic for most. If we cant be bothered to defend our art then who will?

greedoniz wrote:Any strict adherence to genre or structing prevents freedom to express.

I counter with:

Use of another entertainment medium as a platform, coating or principal for magic denies it as a entertainment genre in its own right and dilutes its ability to create wonder and amazement.

... although ...

Use of another entertainment medium as a contextual addition to the principal magic can enhance the magical experience.

Markdini wrote:Emin ruins art for me.

Quite a normal attitude from a member of the wider public. In reality, the art world creates art for artists and art critics. It's an elitist circle that doesn't really care what the public think.

It would be exactly the same with magic if magicians only every performed magic that other magicians and magic critics liked. The rest of the public would think it was pants and nobody would care.

I don't think we're going to be able to draw a line under this which we can all agree on. As has been stated in the literature, some magicians just think magic needs to be presented differently.

I see your point there Marvell. You could perform a real knuckle buster for a magicians with false counts , palms and reproductions and to the lay audience this will fall flat on its face, to us it be the best thing since the last best thing. On the other hand you can do a very simple self worker and people will go mad.