[This coming weekend marks Harry Houdini’s 150th birthday! So this week on the blog I’ll perform some AmericanStudying magic of my own, leading up to a special post on that legendary prestidigitator.]
On a
handful of contemporary talents who reflect how magic has continued to evolve.
1)
Ricky Jay: I honestly
don’t want to say too much here, as I’d rather you take the next hour and watch
that amazing special (directed by David Mamet!). The heart of magic shows are
card tricks, and no one—not in our own era, and not ever as far as I’m
concerned—has mastered them more than Ricky Jay did (he tragically passed
away in 2018 at the age of 72). Watch that video if you doubt my claim!
2)
Lance
Burton: Burton has been performing magic since 1981 and continues to do a Las
Vegas show to this day, and as the images and details on that website indicate
is very much in the vein of the classic stage magicians. The evolution of an
art form doesn’t have to mean brand-new iterations, of course—it can also mean
how the traditional versions have extended into our own moment, what it means
to perform today in those longstanding ways. Burton seems to embody that form
of magic, and has for many decades now.
3)
David
Blaine: The next couple magicians I’ll highlight in this post do represent
more dramatic evolutions and shifts in the art of magic, however. David Blaine
does perform card tricks, but in a close-up, intimate,
audience-involving style that differs quite strikingly from Ricky Jay’s
more traditional stage show. And he does perform illusions, but in a more extreme and death-defying
form than the likewise more traditional stage show of a performer like
Lance Burton. For all those reasons, when I think magic for the internet age I
think of David Blaine.
4)
Criss Angel:
Criss Angel likewise made his reputation performing death-defying illusions and
achieving viral internet fame, but I would say in comparison to Blaine that
Angel has been consistently best-known for his series
of television shows and specials. In that way, Angel extends but also
evolves the way that TV has played a significant role in the career of
yesterday’s subjects, Penn & Teller. One
critique of Angel at times has been that his shows focus more on images and
narrative storytelling than on the magic itself, but that’s the fine line of
any televised entertainment, and a telling reflection of where and how Angel’s
career developed.
5)
Fay Presto:
For most of its history magic has been a male-dominated industry (other than
those scantily-clad female assistants about whom I wrote early in the week),
but of course that’s never been absolute, and it has likewise evolved here in
the 21st century. English magician Fay Presto isn’t just an example of
a successful and famous female performer, she’s one who has been voted The Magic Circle’s
“Magician of the Year” on multiple occasions. She’s not alone as a prominent
female magician, past and present,
but it’s equally important not to limit her through that category, and instead
to name her as another talented reflection of magic’s enduring presence here in
the 21st century.
Houdini
post this weekend,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Magicians or magic histories or contexts you’d highlight?
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