What Art?
I recently wrote somewhere that magic was a performance art and although I didn’t think that there was always room for art there had to be an element of performance. The point I was trying to make is that if you work in a commercial market such as mix and mingle I felt the art side of magic was bound to suffer. If this wasn’t the case then we wouldn’t all be doing the same kind of material – commercial magic. Very often we need to make an impact but we only have a very short window of opportunity to do it in, that’s where stock commercial routines come into there own. They’re direct and require little thought on the part of the spectators, perfect. So that’s it then, there is no art in commercial magic?
Not exactly. I was limiting myself to the tricks and that’s always a mistake.
Very often the art lies not in the tricks we do or even the presentations we frame them in, the art lies at a much more personal level. If you think that there is no art in interrupting a group of people, or in starting a conversation with a stranger then you are missing out on a large aspect of what we do in these “artless” environments.
For those magicians who look down their noses at Children’s Entertainers and think their is no room for art there then again you maybe missing where the real art is. It isn’t Run Rabbit Run, it’s the art of talking to children and gaining their respect. In street performing the art is in crowd building and control not getting the melon under your hat!
Maybe you think that the job of a magician is to do magic tricks in which case you are not only wrong but you are in the wrong line of work. Do anything but be a magician and then you can do tricks whenever you want and not have to worry about the art. We have all had the experience of the spectator who can do a few tricks, or who, after you’ve performed a trick, declares “my son can do that.” They’re not saying “I’m a professional magician” or “my 8 year old is a professional magician”, they are simply pointing out to you what you should already know – the trick is not that important. Magicians are professional communicators, and our job is to engage with spectators and that is where the real art lies.
So let me re-state my original point: Magic is a performance art. There should always be a performance and the art should be present in every atom and every second of what we do.
