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Anyone got any experience of performing magic for non-English speakers? I did on Sunday night, and couldn't believe just how much I rely on language while performing! I thought I'd be able to get away with a few hand gestures, but I found it quite difficult without using words.

It was fun anyway. Oh, those Russians (as Bony M once said).

I did a show at my company's golf tournament last year, and the next week I found out that the French-speaking employees were turned off and most left because I wasn't speaking French (very sensitive political issue in these parts!)

I was quite angry because I'm not a paid performer - I'm an employee doing the company a favour (while getting great experience for myself). Now I am perfectly bilingual and have no problems speaking in French, so when asked why I didn't speak at least a little French I found it difficult to explain that i wasn't really "just speaking" as it appeared. Every damn word was rehearsed. So even though you can actually SPEAK another language, sometimes it's hard to perform magic in that language unless you actually prepare your patter beforehand (and not have to translate in your mind as you are speaking - which is quite complicated when you are already trying to do something complicated such as perform magic).

I've performed for Japanese-speakers on a few occasions. I'm proficient (but not fluent) in Japanese, but I can communicate what I need to, thanks in part to watching Cyril videos. Cyril does it amazingly--both Japanese-speakers and English-speakers can follow the magic because he uses phrases from both.

Of course, Japanese is a different sort of situation, as many of them are interested in American culture and the English language in general--the French probably aren't as eager to learn our language as some other cultures.

Ciao,
Rob

Paul, I can see the problem that you would have had in communicating and translating a mental magic type of routine as much of the effect relies on the patter.

I've entertained a small number of foreigners at a few trade shows that I've worked but with visual magic and I didn't appear to have a problem judging by their reactions.

I would assume that what can be seen is much easier for the mind to translate as opposed to what needs to be heard.

We're about to have our annual influx of Polish and Hungarian hotel workers locally, I'll let you know at the end of the summer.

does this count ?

i have perform for some of my teachers ( their Australian ) and also my Indonesian teachers but the most hard part is performing in front of my Spanish teachers ( i could get confused some times so i combined it with a little English )

Silent magic would be so much easier !

...or simply not worrying about the French!