Here's my idea for a Dekolta chair presentation. Actually is also serves as a little joke.

The magician have just finished his 3rd or 4th illusion on stage and as he is about to proceed into his next one we hear a heckler from the audience dissing the magician on stage. the magician tries to proceed but the heckler gets louder. In frustration the magician invites the heckler on stage sit him down on a dekolta chair that's designed to look like an electric chair. The magician throws the switch and there's a zapping sound.

The magician then pulls the cloth off the heckler revealing that fact that he has vanished. The magician then steps forward looking at the crowd and says slyly "anyone else?"

I know it seems rather rough now- but it might be a nice way to do it!

MacGyver

MacGyver I say go for it. or sit him down and ask him if he'll like to watch the show from there ( dekolta Chair ) also I take it your in the Magic University in south africa how do you like it ?

Hey I Like your idea...!!!...and then does he reappear at the back of the hall with 2 le**os on either side ? Let me know....Im looking forward to this illusion !!!

You also might want to have a plant/stooge to help you with this.

Well the guy will be a plant! I

I'm not in the university of Magic. I am friends with the vice president of South African Magical Society (SAMS). I dunno - but I don't feel like belonging to a society

I'm working on more original approaches for effects. Dekolta chair doesn't have to be performed in an attic!!

laters

The guy will be a plant?

I'd rather he be a vegetable!

Get it? Vegetable?

No?

Ahhh.... Forget it!

A lot of magicians feel that way, but belonging to a magical society can be a good thing. Most of the members are amateurs, which means that they have other jobs. Sometimes the things they do for a living can be helpful to you when you are constructing things. For example, there is a fellow who is a member of our local magic club. He isn't a great magician, but he is a heck of a machinist.

One hand washes the other.

And if you were a member of a magic club, you might also have access to some historical books that would broaden your view of magic. Your quote "the DeKolta Chair doesn't have to be performed in an attic" indicates to me that your view in magic goes back no more than, say, 20 years. The DeKolta chair was not performed in an attic situation until John Gaughan set that up for Copperfield. Naturally, everyone copied him.

But what was the reason for the attic set? It was to get rid of the t*** d*** which had been necessary in earlier presentations.

The idea of involving a heckler from the audience in an illusion isn't new at all. Paul Driscoll did something similar with an assistant's revenge -- 25 years ago. But it does show that you are thinking along original lines, so that's not bad at all

If you go back to the original presentation of the DeKolta chair, then you would know that modern magicians have also eliminated one of the key parts of that DeKolta used in his presentation.

Anyone know what it was?

The cloth vanished as well.

I knew about the cloth also.

Most guys do the Richardi presentation and handling.

When we do corporate,. we vanish the competion. Then we we set a spectator in the chair for a sponge ball routine, we tease.."Remember what happen to the last person who sat here".

Bingo! Give the man a cup of coffee and a donut!

:hotcoffee:

I am presuming the electrobe head gear on the execution chair would replace the usual unseen apparatus, if so nice touch.
It may be a neat idea to switch the stooge for a smouldering skeleton or a charred pile of smoking clothing

A unit could be designed that does not need a ***p D***, by incorporating some throw switch type unit for the electric chair, if you get my drift.

Just some thoughts from this side of the water.

Cheers

Mark

Since electric chairs are usually rather bulky items, rather than the spindly kinds of things that one usually sees made into a DeKolta chair, and they are usually on plinths of some kind, there are ample places to conceal "the works." I can visualize a very simple way of getting this to work that would not be uncomfortable for the person being vanished.

Why not use some kind of a funken ring and eliminate the real electric chair mechanism?

Check out Dream Designs in the UK.
They have a De Kolta chair that does exactly what you say - and it uses any member of the audience who is then able to appear back elsewhere.

I believe Chabang is a member on here so touch base with him.

If I am not mistaken there is already a DeKolta Chair in the shape of an electric chair, it didn't look too real if I remember correctly. I believe that Mark Parker has shown his true genious (once again) with his suggestion. One final thought, staged correctly with lots of smoke and sparks emminating from your "victim" you could completely do away with the cloth. If you do this be careful becuase smoke/fog tends to follow quick motion and might reveal the motion of your "victim."

Nick Fox

Or, take the cloth away to show the victim is now a skeleton.

***..is there no original ideas left in magic?

If you want to understand why most original ideas can be traced to other ideas, read James Burke's book Connections.

One of the cleverest "original" ideas in illusions is the Pendragons' "360 degree" Levitation. Jonathan Pendragon would have a fit if he saw the video I saw two nights ago -- Mark Wilson performing a platform levitation which had all of the elements of that very illusion with one minor exception. The video was shot during the early days of the Alakazam show. As I watched it, Bev Bergeron, who designed this particular levitation told me "We told Mark to take it all the way around, but he decided not to do it."

But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't do the presentation.

Richard Hughes' idea of using the funkenring principle is a very good one. You don't need to use actual funkenrings, though. Just remove the mechanisms from two or three of them and install them at the right locations -- head, hands, etc.

I think Paul Harris said it best when he discovered that he had recently "invented" a sleight that two magicians before him had already published.
he said :

" I applaud these two titans of magic for their foresight and ingenuity in so accurately predicting the move which I would later originate" Paul Harris

So (with tongue firmly in cheek ) I applaud Paul Driscoll and Mark Parker for predicting the ORIGINAL presentation which I would later invent!!!

It shows that you are thinking! Most magicians don't even bother to do that.