Play: Myles Nakouzi - Review

Play: Myles Nakouzi

PLAY isn't as much 'playing' as it is 'ass-kicking'—Myles Nakouzi's debut book burns white hot onto the scene with his complex, unique, and highly stylized approach. We get a full glimpse into the mind and hands of Myles. PLAY provides a strong cross-section of his repertoire, from sleights and flourishes to the multitude of diverse effects—all characterized with the complexity and ethereal flourish of his signature style.
From the introductions we get a feel for how in-tune Myles is with his art, and before I even reached the first effect I knew I was holding material that wasn't just challenging, but consumptive by nature. I spent four hours just developing a general knowledge of the material herein, and to me, that's exciting—as well as refreshing—to find material that is not only new, but more importantly, that can be realistically used in one's performance.

Design/Layout/Set-up/Presentation:
PLAY looks amazing. This is definitely not a bare-bones product, its design and layout really add something to it and you can tell that a lot of effort and work went into it. Each effect has it's own full-page HQ Photo Cover with a description, it really adds something nice and a sense of professionalism to it. Overall the photography is phenomenal throughout. Each photo, whether it be a cover or the figure photos for each effect walkthrough is high quality. There are multiple instructional figure photos for each effect, and each photo is perfectly angled to supplement the text and give the reader a clear and concise visual aid to guide them along.
Play is 49 pages long, it includes a forwards from Dan Buck & Daniel Madison, an introduction by Myles himself, there are 12 different effects/sleights, each require 3-4 pages of walkthrough. As I said above, the material included is diverse, but it all fits together so nicely. I know I haven't provided a review of each particular item, more information will be released soon.

Format: There will be a 1st edition printing that will be limited to 100 or less and if I'm not mistaken these will surface at Blackpool. The PDF version is set to go on sale Feb24th from both dananddave.com as well as devilsadvocateproductions.com

I was honoured to have the privilege to do an advance review for this product, I hope it provided some insight and piqued your curiosity for what lies ahead.

-Chris Alexander

[Trailer] http://vimeo.com/3168621
 
Sep 1, 2007
1,241
1
Can you list and describe the effects/flourishes? This review isn't really saying anything other than its a good product.
 
Unfortunately, not in it's entirety yet, but here is a taste:

TWENTY3 - twenty three is a powerful sandwich routine, it's fast paced, with many stages, ending in an impossible transposition.
[I found this effect extremely smooth, a lot of multi-phase routines don't blend well and come off with a staccato pace, this one I felt really just leads from one thing to the next smooth as the handling, I like how fast it can be performed with continual sandwiching, blitzing your spectators, by the time they've processed what has just happened it's already begun to happen again, it's a continual attack. This is one of the easier routine's in the book, oh and the transposition at the end is killer, and the card can be signed.]

SUBJUGATE-card is selected, then half face up half face down the deck is shuffled, it immediately rights itself, it is shuffled like this again and the performer waves over the deck and the selected card appears and the deck fixes itself
[This is a fun one that definitely takes some practice to get the flow down but ultimately this is what every triumph routine aspires to do but can't]

DUPLEX - one handed centre-double that pops out of the deck. yeah.
[Me and Duplex here...well let me say this, Duplex is probably my favourite portion of the book, or in the top 3, that being said, I probably spent somewhere between half and 2/3 of my initial read-through obsessing over it. As you might have guessed, it is difficult... I consider myself very dexterous but some of this is new territory for my fingers. The ends definitely justify the means tho, just be prepared to practice like never before because you'll want to use this, and it requires flawless execution]


The handling of these effects becomes a big part of it, they are all very stylized, and ideally they should be quick and smooth, this gives just a small preview of some of the different types of material included, all in varying (growing) skill level. I hope this holds you over and is helpful.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sep 1, 2007
1,529
1
32
San Francisco, CA
2 Questioons:
When and where will this be released?
Is it a DVD, book or pdf.

Play: Myles Nakouzi

PLAY isn't as much 'playing' as it is 'ass-kicking'—Myles Nakouzi's debut book burns white hot onto the scene with his complex, unique, and highly stylized approach. We get a full glimpse into the mind and hands of Myles. PLAY provides a strong cross-section of his repertoire, from sleights and flourishes to the multitude of diverse effects—all characterized with the complexity and ethereal flourish of his signature style.
From the introductions we get a feel for how in-tune Myles is with his art, and before I even reached the first effect I knew I was holding material that wasn't just challenging, but consumptive by nature. I spent four hours just developing a general knowledge of the material herein, and to me, that's exciting—as well as refreshing—to find material that is not only new, but more importantly, that can be realistically used in one's performance.

Design/Layout/Set-up/Presentation:
PLAY looks amazing. This is definitely not a bare-bones product, its design and layout really add something to it and you can tell that a lot of effort and work went into it. Each effect has it's own full-page HQ Photo Cover with a description, it really adds something nice and a sense of professionalism to it. Overall the photography is phenomenal throughout. Each photo, whether it be a cover or the figure photos for each effect walkthrough is high quality. There are multiple instructional figure photos for each effect, and each photo is perfectly angled to supplement the text and give the reader a clear and concise visual aid to guide them along.
Play is 49 pages long, it includes a forwards from Dan Buck & Daniel Madison, an introduction by Myles himself, there are 12 different effects/sleights, each require 3-4 pages of walkthrough. As I said above, the material included is diverse, but it all fits together so nicely. I know I haven't provided a review of each particular item, more information will be released soon.

Format: There will be a 1st edition printing that will be limited to 100 or less and if I'm not mistaken these will surface at Blackpool. The PDF version is set to go on sale Feb24th from both dananddave.com as well as devilsadvocateproductions.com

I was honoured to have the privilege to do an advance review for this product, I hope it provided some insight and piqued your curiosity for what lies ahead.

-Chris Alexander

[Trailer] http://vimeo.com/3168621
Question answered.
 
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