I recently have been really bummed by all the news surrounding David Blaine lately. He was my biggest inspiration in magic and seeing him live during his tour boosted my morale to complete my own show when I was too overwhelmed and felt like giving up. I wasn't going to bring attention to the subject but I saw another user mention it in a post and it got me thinking about how Twitter responded to the recent allegations against celebrities such as Kevin Spacey and Louis C. K. Twitter users started a thread where essentially they shared stories of celebrities that left a positive impact so I would like to basically replicate that with this thread.
There are a lot of "celebrity" magicians that I could talk about being really awesome such as Scott Alexander, Dan Sperry, Joaquin Ayala, and several others. But the one I want to focus on right now is Michael Ammar. He is everything you would imagine him to be like in person. He is very kind and friendly and doesn't come across as a guy who is solely looking to sell you his products. He genuinely seems to care for people and is overall just an easy guy to get along with. He is by far the best lecturer I have ever seen in person. He is very thorough and clear with his teaching.
One thing I will always remember about Michael Ammar is a story he told about treating female volunteers or just volunteers in general with respect. He mentioned a story about how he took his mother to see a magic show and the magician was about to perform the 20th century comedy bra trick. Michael knew what was coming before the magician did the trick and saw that the magician was about to pick his mother. Michael said he looked at the magician and shook his head no as a warning that his mother was definitely not someone that would be cool with that effect and the magician picked someone else instead. With this story he concluded that every time we pick a volunteer that we need to treat them as if they are our own mother, sister, wife, or relative because our volunteer is valued to someone else. He added that at the end of the routine, your volunteer should be the happiest person in the room. If they are not, then you have failed as a performer. Plus it makes sense logically, if an audience sees that they are going to be humiliated in front of people why would they ever want to volunteer for you?
That particular lesson has affected how I script any of my performances, street or stage. I try to make who ever volunteers for me to be the happiest person in the area in hopes that I can get future volunteers during my act. Our volunteers are to be treated with respect and dignity and not to be humiliated for the sake of a petty joke. Magicians have a stigma of being awkward guys around females and that stigma changes starting with us the magicians. We need to show more professionalism and class that way all genders can feel included and welcomed whether as a spectator or someone wanting to be a magician of their own.
Michael Ammar is one of the greats and I highly recommend checking out his lecture tour if you can. You won't regret it.
There are a lot of "celebrity" magicians that I could talk about being really awesome such as Scott Alexander, Dan Sperry, Joaquin Ayala, and several others. But the one I want to focus on right now is Michael Ammar. He is everything you would imagine him to be like in person. He is very kind and friendly and doesn't come across as a guy who is solely looking to sell you his products. He genuinely seems to care for people and is overall just an easy guy to get along with. He is by far the best lecturer I have ever seen in person. He is very thorough and clear with his teaching.
One thing I will always remember about Michael Ammar is a story he told about treating female volunteers or just volunteers in general with respect. He mentioned a story about how he took his mother to see a magic show and the magician was about to perform the 20th century comedy bra trick. Michael knew what was coming before the magician did the trick and saw that the magician was about to pick his mother. Michael said he looked at the magician and shook his head no as a warning that his mother was definitely not someone that would be cool with that effect and the magician picked someone else instead. With this story he concluded that every time we pick a volunteer that we need to treat them as if they are our own mother, sister, wife, or relative because our volunteer is valued to someone else. He added that at the end of the routine, your volunteer should be the happiest person in the room. If they are not, then you have failed as a performer. Plus it makes sense logically, if an audience sees that they are going to be humiliated in front of people why would they ever want to volunteer for you?
That particular lesson has affected how I script any of my performances, street or stage. I try to make who ever volunteers for me to be the happiest person in the area in hopes that I can get future volunteers during my act. Our volunteers are to be treated with respect and dignity and not to be humiliated for the sake of a petty joke. Magicians have a stigma of being awkward guys around females and that stigma changes starting with us the magicians. We need to show more professionalism and class that way all genders can feel included and welcomed whether as a spectator or someone wanting to be a magician of their own.
Michael Ammar is one of the greats and I highly recommend checking out his lecture tour if you can. You won't regret it.
