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Hello to all,

I've been working with a dancing cane for a while and have been researching the topic a ton and came across a ton of interesting unorthodox moves with the dancing cane. The dancing canes reincarnation comes in the form of a long wand in which really cool moves are possible. If anyone is still toying with the idea of putting together a dancing cane routine check out the dance scène and see what they have got going on. They call it levisticking and have there own styles of props mostly shorter than our traditional styles of canes. I picked up a led version that's really cool for some of these new techniques its called the lightning wand. If any of you have any pet moves I'd love to hear about them. - Jinx

Also has a minor part in juggling culture FYI.

Dance and juggling scenes are always worth looking at when putting together any kind of stagey routine.
There's a dance element called "conjouring" which is dancing with d'lites.

Hadn't heard of levisticking before, i'll have to take a look; thanks.

Levisticking or flow wandering are the terms used a ton in the dance culture when referring to the style of dancing with a levitating wand/cane. Thanks for the tip on the D-lite style of dance, ill have to check it out.

The real key to any dancing cane routine is to keep it really, and I mean really short. In fact the dancing cane shouldn't be the feature in the routine. Perhaps you are doing a drunk manipulation act. You come out in top hat in tails, all of the sudden a cane appears. It scares you cause after all a cane just appeared out of nowhere. So you toss the demon cane away, but it floats back. AGGGG got to get rid of the cane, toss it again, and again it comes back, maybe this time it goes around the body and back into your hand. Stop there. Audience got the point, cane floats on its own, after that well, so what keep it going and the audience just starts looking for the method. Let the cane now turn into a flower or vanish completely or something, anything, just get rid of it.

Bmat If doing standard dancing cane moves I completely agree. A well presented routine not as a feature but as an added bit to segway between effects can be a nice transition. My current set up is something all together different; I'm using the dancing cane to attract attention around a busking table. Something about animating a led wand, and having it light up, float, and spin around is like the runway assistants directing planes around with the flashlights. I tried it once for fun, and it worked so well i’m trying to improve upon it. It never fails to draw people in. Check out some of the levistick moves though, even though you know how they work, can you spot which hand there tethered too when they are using a 6- 10 ft line?

Done well the dancing cane is a sight to behold, particularly if the performer is skilled enough to use two canes simultaneously.

A short thread is the secret rather than having the thread too long as to look truly magical the hands should appear to remain still while the cane is dancing around.

I started with the dancing cane and got some great tips from Jeff McBride on my routine, and have since moved to the dancing broom. It's one of my favorite small stage pieces to perform, and I agree with a lot of others that "less is more" when it comes to this type of effect. For me, it's a lot like the floating dollar bill. I've seen magicians float the bill for a minute, doing all kinds of twisting hand gestures to continually "prove" it's floating, and it always seems to lose it's impact when done too long. Contrast that to making the bill twitch and eventually dance for a bit, and then finish off by floating for only a few seconds. I've always felt like this approach helps to suspend disbelief just a little bit longer, and makes the floating portion stand out even more.