Try this one on!

We are always scrambling to get the latest this or that, trying to keep up with the times, concerned todays audiences won't relate to anything less than high speed MTV-style garbage, trying to stay ahead of the clock...

Well, yesterday I saw that this is pretty much a load of ****.

San Diego Zoo 6:30 PM The Living Garden presents "The Fountain"

A big crowd gathered, standing not sitting, operatic and new age-style music played. The curtain opened. A beautiful (to understate) statue of a lady stood in the middle of two small columns that spouted small plumes of water. What followed next was an act right out of the turn of the OTHER century, 1800's to 1920's.

Eventually she moved, very slowly into different poses. Eventually water spouted from her finger tips. Eventually water spouted from her head. It was all, very studied and slow and anything but spectacular by today's standards, but and this is the BIG BUT, nobody budged from the crowd! Toddlers in strollers were transfixed. Men and women silent and unmoving. Teenagers...quiet and respectful. It was at the 16-minute mark when the first FEW folks started to leave the standing group which had grown much larger.

At approximately 28 minutes it was over with a beautiful operatic aria and had held virtually the entire group. Huge applause as the curtain closed. (There had been smatterings of applause during the performance.)

It was an epiphany!

The girl who performed the act was perfection in form and facial contour for the act. The costuming was flawless. The concept however was so wrong for today's audience it was mind boggling, until it worked like a dream.

My thoughts are that if we continue to CATER to the crowd's desires and only bring them what they already know, we fail to expand their horizons...and "The Fountain" certainly did that!

High praise to those who had the stones to produce this old time vaudville act in 2004.

Stunned.

She plays four shows a day...don't miss it.

Doug

Martin Nash once told me that magicians are too quick to jump on the newest "thing" in magic. He said he has toured the world with (in his words) a deck of cards and an act that hasn't changed in 40 years.

I am curing myself of this condition slowly, but I was as guilty as anyone for it.

Some of us take years to work on props, ideas, presentation, etc. for those little tricks that wind up becoming 'the latest thing'. Even when given the idea, props and basic script, it still takes quite a while to make a piece work for the performer... and that takes lots of feedback.

There was a good bit of advice from Dai Vernon about learning to do just one trick REALLY WELL. There is not shame in only having a couple of dozen or so performance works in a repertoire. The good material takes time to polish.

Jonathan: That wasn't the point...at all...but your's is well taken anyway.

Doug

I've always liked magic that was slow and deliberate, and audiences will too. Thing is, you gotta get their attention, and that can be harder nowadays as busy as people are, but it's nice to know I don't have to be a flourish master to captivate (not that I don't like flourishes). Very nice post.

Michael

Thanks Michael. Re: Flourishes: You reminded me of something that used to bug me, maybe it still does, but when watching the big acts perform in Vegas on TV especially, some (I said SOME) make a career out of running around the stage flailing their arms around like a synchronized swimmer and posing in the most ridiculous positions. This seems to have taken the place of REAL material. I can understand when the 'babe' assistants do it for misdirection on occasion, but come on. Get it over with and wear a freakin' Tu Tu why don't ya?

How silly is it to me? Just imagine Penn and Teller in that mode! Hahaha...oops...sorry for that image...

Rant over. Deep apologies to all.

Doug

Magic done well will never get old at least to me anyway

Doug,

I've thought about your first post for a while. So why are people captivated?

If you try to stage an act with fast-paced MTV-style jump cutting, it will look like an imitation of a music video or action picture. But it will be flawed: the camera can direct the viewer's eye, zooming in for close-up shots. They can throw in special effects. On stage, your ability to direct the eye is more limited (you can't zoom), as are the special effects, even with a very large budget.

In the act you describe, the performer is everything. The deliberate pace, and the beauty of the act as you describe it, serve to emphasize that this is a real human being performing live. This wouldn't be much fun to watch on film at that pace, would it? Yet the audience knows this is real. What is going to happen next? Of course it's hard to walk away.

Decades ago there was a dance troupe that had dancers in loincloths, their heads shaved, bodies completely covered in chalk dust, lowered slowly head down from the top of buildings by ropes tied around their ankles (yes, I know about the accident, save your post). According to people who saw it live, it was completely arresting.

I think performers should not strive to imitate the pace and effects of TV and movies. The essential ingredient of live performance is the interaction between the performer and the audience. Look at it the other way: TV and movies can't possibly have this. Feel sorry for them!

If you are a live performer, you are providing a hand-crafted gourmet meal to people who must usually subsist on mass-produced fast food.

Yours,
Paul

I'm glad sir, that you realized it. On the "how does blaine connect to the MTV Generation" thread, I tried to field this one.

With if you can mesh with your audience, rapport, they call it....I don't care WHO they are, or how old they are, they will lend you their attention for as long as you like, depending on your skill as a performer. In fact, kids these days are STARVING for interesting and meaninful entertainment. Why can MTV only stay on one subject for five seconds? Because they're not saying anything! Kids are not goldfish, despite appearences you CAN wake them up.

Also not that building rapport does NOT mean being what you think 'they' want you to be. It means being a character that is attractive to them. If you're forty years old, please don't don baggy jeans and a chain wallet, stink of weed, and talk like you have A.D.D. Hell, I don't even do that. You can get rapt attention from a loud, drunken party of teenagers by playing 200 year old music on a piano...it's all about the way it's done!

I'm sorry I can't explain better, but let me put it this way. If you find yourself not connecting...don't assume it's merely because the audience has been dumbed down too much to follow you. It's just a shell, and a fragile one at that.

The late, great Karrell Fox said he would go into a magic shop and ask "what's old?", rather than "what's new?" because the oldies were the best.

And I have to agree. Much of the plastic junk and unnecessary moves are turned out today simply because they can be done and not because they are magical.

Granted, modern audiences wouldn't sit for two hours watching a curtain, waiting for Houdini to get out of a milk can behind it. (Well, since he's been dead for 78 years, maybe they WOULD! LOL!)

But I doubt that audiences were that thrilled with the idea even in Houdini's day.

Audiences are not "dumbing down"; performers are!

I grew up around performers as my father was a compare and comedian. The acts that I grew up around were very special as were the performers.
This was at the tail end of live entertainment, when TV was still expensive and infrequent.
It was a time when everyone had a TALENT. people would learn an instrument or sing. others would do comedy or magic. Others still, sought more obscure forms of displaying the humans potential.
In my time, I have known many Magicians, strongmen, sword acts, balance acts, dance troups and so many more. In all cases the enjoyment of the spectators has been unlike any electronic based entertainment. Always I see the crowd enjoy live performance more, although todays up and coming performers are far inferior to yester-years performers.
[just a note: my father toured USA with Barnum's Kaleidoscape 1999-2000] @ 81 years of age
The Circus had the crowds enthralled at every point. The structure was obscure acts with comedy in an old style feel.
They had the NewYork tent right in Bryant Park, when I was there it snowed 14 inches overnight and I had to help clear the snow off the tent Ahhh Happy days!

http://store.ringling.com/kaleidoscape.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg......e=events

[quote from a review]
The Golden Statues are a trio of strong men from Morocco, sprayed gold. They move in slow motion and accomplish things that would seem impossible even with a lot of heavy breathing and muscular heft. One of their poses has one man standing with the second man wrapped and suspended around his torso, while a third man does a one-handed handstand, balancing himself on the first man's head. Think about that one.

These guys toured with B&B circus for sometime they are amazing.

Yes, my old man was in that circus. They toured most of America for 2 years. (Germany 2 years previous)

Man, I love bean dip!

Peter Marucci wrote...

"Granted, modern audiences wouldn't sit for two hours watching a curtain, waiting for Houdini to get out of a milk can behind it."

But they'd stand to see a guy stand in a block of ice and on a pole for longer! Go figure!

Blaine's on to something! ;p

Well, one difference is that the folks watching the block of ice know they can walk away at any time, knowing when Blaine is due to be chipped out.

Houdini's audiences had to sit there, lest they miss the moment he stepped out free.

Steve

True to a certain extent, but Houdini could've been "rescued" too, don't you think?

And the audience at Blaine's stunt also had a "deadline" when he would be "freed", imho... When he was taken out of the ice and when he jumped from the pole...

Though I truly suspect that neither Houdini nor Blaine was really in any "real" danger...

But that's my take on that...

To each is own...

Lest this becomes a "Blaine" thread...

Now we don't want that do we? ;p