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David Parr
V.I.P.
374 Posts
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Posted: Feb 12, 2007 5:55am
I've come to truly appreciate "what you see is what you get" people, not just in magic but in life. Denny is one of those people. There is no pretense about him. The guy you meet in the shop, the guy you talk with on the phone, the guy you see doing magic, is Denny. Which brings me to my question: I've noticed much talk in magic, especially on this site, about the question of how to create an on-stage character. A bushelful of advice has been put forth on this subject. But the magicians I've admired over the years -- Doug Henning being the first to have had a profound influence on me -- did not seem to have "constructed" or "created" a character; they were able to become THEMSELVES in performance. Denny, would you share what brought you to the point where you were comfortable enough to show the audience the person you are? How and when did you learn that you didn't have to put on a character and become someone else, perhaps the person you thought your audience or other magicians wanted you to be, and could instead become yourself?
Paper Prophecies | new ebook | available at http://www.davidparr.com/store
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David Parr
V.I.P.
374 Posts
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Posted: Feb 14, 2007 12:01pm
Quote:
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On 2007-02-13 19:36, Doc Dixon wrote:
you're about the only one that maintains the same performing character when you perform illusions and when you perform platform effects. Funny and baffling doing the egg bag. Funny and baffling doing the canvas covered trunk. Too many illusionists are like this: forced funny doing the egg bag. forced suaveness doing the sub trunk. Result? Not so good.
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I'm glad DD mentioned this because it is directly related to what I was getting at in my previous post. Denny is consistent and unforced in performance -- and in the shop and on the phone -- because he is not pretending or trying to be an artificial character. That persona is not a put-on or a mask. It's Denny being Denny. I wonder what brought him to the realization that it is better to become himself than it is to try to become someone else? How did he learn to get past the fear that frequently motivates us to hide behind a security blanket?
Paper Prophecies | new ebook | available at http://www.davidparr.com/store
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Denny Haney
V.I.P.
48 Posts
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Posted: Feb 14, 2007 3:00pm
Hi David,
Many thanks for the question as well as the comments.
You know..."finding yourself" is perhaps one of the most difficult things in performing magic. It literally took me about ten years before it finally "clicked." I spent the first ten years of may career being sort of a "hack" magician. Don't get me wrong...that statement is not meant to be an insult but a standard act, doing the doves, the props, the standard routines is all that Lee and I really were at the time. The act was "good" but it didn't really stand out among the rest.
We all begin magic by copying the others that we admire. In our own minds, we are "envisioning" those that we admire as we perform on stage. The problem is that what we envision is not really what the audience is seeing.
There is only ONE Channing Pollack, Fred Kaps, Johnny Thompson, Jeff McBride, Hobson, Burton, Mac King, and on and on.
We will never REALLY become ourselves until we learn our tricks so well that we can do them almost without thinking. This will build confidence. Once the confidence is built and we stop worrying about the mechancis of the trick, we can then BEGIN to relax a bit on stage.
That is the beginning stage.
When it finally reaches a point where you are soooo confident in the content of your show, your own personality will begin to come out because you are now "thinking on your feet." You begin to pay more attention to your audience and react to things that they may say or do while you are performing. You begin to HAVE FUN. You no longer worry about saying the wrong thing or looking a certain way because you KNOW that no matter what, they will like the content of your show. Now you are on a roll!!
I am a firm believer in the thought that your audience will write your show and will develop your character as you perform, IF YOU LET THEM. You can only let them do this when you are free of worry about the content of your act. You will begin to ad lib, make faces, say things off the top of your head, etc. You will do this WITHOUT FEAR as you know the content of the act is strong.
As you discover "little" things in your personality that seems to play well, you then begin to make them "larger" on stage. Little actions, habits, movements, etc now become "bigger." You begin to become YOU. No one can become YOU better than you can. You can't be Lance Burton or any of the others because that job has already been filled by THEM.
In summary, the only way your character will grow and develop is to start by knowing the content of your act WELL. After that you must work without worrying about how you look or what you say. Just let it flow.
I am not a fan of "scripting." I believe in an "outline" of what you are going to say or how you are going to act BUT I feel that a "script" is too confining. It doesn't really allow to you stray or develop.
Free yourself from restraints and fears. Just be YOU and don't worry about it. You will makes mistakes, say the wrong things, and sometimes do the wrong things. That is how we learn to be whatever we are. When we do or say something wrong, it's no big deal. We just will know never to do that again.
Again, it's one of the most difficult things in magic to do. It took me ten years BUT if any of this can knock a couple of years off of your work, then I have done my job.
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