Magic has been a form of entertainment for centuries. The Art has been used among hundreds of civilizations for religious, spiritual, academic, and even healing purposes from the Egyptians to the Romans. Today, magic is a popular form of entertainment in the West that many people come across their television screens or possibly in their living room as Uncle Butch shows off the latest card trick he taught himself.
Card magic is a beautiful art form which has been described countless of times by magicians as being the "poetry of conjuring." What makes card magic so impressive and mystifying is that the cunning performer may at any moment manipulate fifty-two, cut-out pasteboards and create a sense of magic, mystery and wonder at his finger tips. However, this brings up an excellent question—which the London Card Expert, Michael Vincent asks his audience—which I now propose to all of you: where exactly does the magic come from? The magician’s hands? His or her performance? Or rather, does magic come from what the audience experiences?
As a conjurer, I would argue that magic comes from the latter. After all, magic is not about what we see; it’s what we think we see. The art is not about “tricking” something or someone but rather using the trick to make someone feel something. That’s the magic; that’s the wonder.
Tutoring has many similar elements. The most important element is interaction. One must interact with their audience with casualness, respect, and even humor. A great magician once noted that if you want to know if you’re a good performer, after four tricks or so, set the deck aside and see if you can spend the next twenty minutes simply talking with your audience (without any magic at all!). If you are successful, no magic is needed because it is already being experienced as the audience is enjoying your company as is. Therefore, when tutoring, one has to build a relationship with the tutee on a certain level where all of the mechanical/grammatical ‘things’ are forgotten and even pass by unnoticed. Just as when the card shark entertains—in its truest form—the sleights and misdirection employed goes unnoticed; thus allowing the miracle to occur.
Try it out, and see how long the tutoring session lasts.
-KJ
1 comment:
Thank you, again, Kyle for entertaining us at the beginning of our WC meeting. As I mentioned in a comment to Matt's post, I am delighted in the unexpected. Relationships forged in the WC are often unexpected (tutor and tutee, tutor and tutor) and just as often delightful.
Much has been written recently on performance theory too & I look forward to talking with you more. I hope this insight works its way into a paper, Kyle.
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