Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Learning To Do Magic Tricks

By James Anthony

One of today's most popular performing arts is magic tricks. This art form is created to entertain people who are willing to be tricked by creating an illusion of the impossible. This happens right in front of the audiences eyes. The people that help to create these wonderful illusions are known as magicians.

Magic comes from the Latin word Magi. The Magi was a man who had the ability to predict the future by reading the stars. Possibly the best and most famous illusionists and was harry Houdini. He was an amazing magician and his magic tricks still amaze people today. He was also the greatest escapologists ever to live.

Magic tricks are achieved with a sleight of hand, misdirection, mirrors or some other form of deception. What the magician is trying to achieve is a sense of bewilderment as he tries to perform a trick that is seemingly impossible.

Audiences are the biggest part of these magic tricks though. Without a willing audience, they wouldn't be possible. People who go to a magic show are willingly opening themselves to deception. They are willing to be entertained by trickery. But trickery or not, the shows always amaze the audiences.

What Houdini did was gain the trust of his fans by debunking others who claimed magic powers instead of just calling themselves illusionists. This is a practice that is followed today by some of the greatest magicians and illusionists including James Randi and Penn and Teller.

For much of the twentieth century, magic became merely a child's form of entertainment. This began to change with the revival of Doug Henning. Henning brought practical magic tricks back to the adult audiences and he became popular on television as well as live shows.

After this, many magicians began to come out of the woodwork that are more than amazing. Performers such as David Blaine began performing Houdini type magic tricks. He became a master at escapes and endurance displays, always amazing his audiences. These magicians we watch on television typically perform in front of a live audience to earn the trust of their audience on television.

Today's tricks are based on the old principals of magic tricks. The saying it's all done with mirrors was about magic tricks performed with mirrors. However, today magicians don't typically use mirrors anymore. They are very hard to set up as well as transport.

There are many types of magic tricks that performers accomplish. First, production tricks are where the illusionist produces an object out of nothing. Vanishing tricks however do the opposite, where the object seemingly disappears. Transformation magic tricks are when the illusionist changes one object into another one and restoration is where a magician destroys an object, then makes it reappear whole once again.

Teleportation tricks are when the magician moves an object from one place to another or when two objects change places. Escapology is when the magician is typically restrained and works his way to escape to safety. Levitation is simply where the magician appears to defy gravity and Penetration is when the magician is able to make one solid object move through another. Most magic tricks today that are successful are a mixture of forms, making an entire show for the audience.

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