Quick Little Topic

May 8, 2008
1,081
0
Cumbria, UK
I present my magic until it is being performed...
I cannot, and have never been able to, sit down and think of patter for a trick. When I tried, it ended with faintly (read: utterly) crap performances that I wasn't at all happy with, subsequently causing me to drop the pretences and be left with patterless tricks. Of course, I didn't stop doing magic because of this, I went out and presented what I had to the world regardless. When I said something, and it worked, it stuck and I used it again. When it didn't, I dropped it. Slowly, in this way, my tricks built themselves up to something I am happy with. I will now confidently say that I perform the best part of my repertoire, and am allowing the rest of it to build itself up to this performance standard in the same way. Now whilst this may not be the best way for many people, I find it gives me the most realistic and enjoyable performance, for both me and my audiences.
 
Hmm... I think maybe you missed the point Shane but I'll wait for your edit to comment further.

For me an idea pops into my head while doing something else. Watching Eagle Eye today and I thought about some presentation ideas I could use for some stuff. Things I could relate well with what people know about the whole somebody always watching us, and trying to relate that to cards or some other sort of effect.
 
You sort of need to define what you mean by perform and what you mean by present.
It seems like so far people have taken to assuming that "perform" is the better or more noble or artistic of the two options. But when i think about each word they could mean different things based on the context. Dictionary.com says
Perform:
1. to carry out; execute; do
2.to go through or execute in the proper, customary, or established manner
etc.
As if to say that when you "perform" you are just "performing" the actions.

Where as present is defined as
1. to furnish or endow with a gift or the like, esp. by formal act

2. to bring, offer, or give, often in a formal or ceremonious way

So to present your magic or, give it a presentation rather than just perform the actions seems to be the more artistic thing to do. Which is basically what you're asking right? You're asking if we just go through the motions or if we create a story (more or less).

It just seems kind of silly to me that you guys are defining what you do based on two words that you haven't really defined very carefully. Maybe instead of using two relatively vague words like perform and present you could ask what you mean. For example: when you do magic for people, do you just go through the motions and let the effect speak for itself, or do you create a story or some kind of narrative to bolster the effect and create a more magical experience?

Just sayin.
 
Hmm... I think maybe you missed the point Shane but I'll wait for your edit to comment further.

For me an idea pops into my head while doing something else. Watching Eagle Eye today and I thought about some presentation ideas I could use for some stuff. Things I could relate well with what people know about the whole somebody always watching us, and trying to relate that to cards or some other sort of effect.

No I didn't miss the point it's alright I wanted to clarify a little later. In the real world as in the magic business side of things you find yourself in ackward positions to perform when your really busy or pre-occupied with a million other things at the moment so your mind is distracted yet you don't want to let anyone down. Sometimes I'm in deep thought and so when someone ask me to show them something I need to be able to atleast go through the movements with atleast a decent amount of presentation to satisfy the pursuer without sucking to say at the least.

Then there's the rest of the time I'm focused and in presenter mode and I set forth my focus on true presentation. We all find ourselves in situations where we are distracted and we aren't on our game but we tend to lean on mechanics to get us through the presentation anyone who claims different is lieing or just isn't busy enough but I would say 90% of the time I'm focused on presentation but it's important to be able to fall back on the other.

Now my real interest in this question was it seems to me alot of the videos posted on the web and even when I experience it in person there seems to be a point where someones doing magic for themselves and when there doing it for me and I think about that when I'm performing, how am I coming off to someone when I presenting, am I controlling the situation but at the same time performing to them? In the real world I would like to be able to look back say I was always on my game but that wasn't always the case sometimes I got great reactions because I had the movements down to a art but I prefer the later.

Shane
 
Dec 7, 2008
22
0
New Jersey
Actually it's fairly straightforward, do you present your magic as in show it to people or perform your magic, having a plot some substance behind what you show.
Not only did you say you don't need to define them, and then do it. You did it backwards. You're disagreeing with dictionary.com Now THAT was an impressive transpo.
 
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