Creative Capital .... RANT.....

Creative Capital (which I think is a wonderful and much needed organization) provides grants to worthwhile artists to produce work.

Here is the list of performing art from their website
Performing Arts may include dance, dance-theater, experimental music performance,
interdisciplinary, multimedia performance, music-theater, non-traditional opera, performance art, puppetry, spoken word and theater. The focus is on the live performing arts.

Notice any performing art missing? NO MAGIC or MAGICIANS , yes there is puppetry but no magic??!!!
Magic (and magicians) has the ability to be the most demanding, beautiful and unique of all arts. Where else can you share an amazing expereince with an audience and then get them to laugh, think and engage their sense of wonder

So ..... I vent this one time and get it out while I continue to do everything in my power to elevate the art of magic

The little things .....

Illusions by Vick most often performs for adult or all age audiences with the exception of February & March when I perform for Blue & Gold Banquets (my way of giving a little back). Saturday was my first Blue and Gold of this year. There was a young girl of about 6 in attendance, she was very interested in the pre-show. During the show I gave her the rose I use in "Dinner". At the end of the show after I packed up the same little girl finds me, face covered in green icing, has the biggest smile in the world, looks up at me for a minute then opens her arms for me to give her a hug.

One of the Scoutmasters walks up to me after the show and said "You did something we can't do", I asked him what that was, he responded "Kept their attention for 45 minutes"

Upon opening my email the following morning I found an email from the Scoutmaster who found and hired me for their Blue and Gold, it read"Thank you much for providing our entertainment for blue & gold yesterday! I have received countless verbal, email, & Facebook comments on how great you were! The boys were enthralled, engaged, & entertained! One of our best yet! "

Sometimes it's the little things

Quick Post about magicians and "challenges"

The following was my responce in a facebook discussion, thought it merited a post here

A challenge in a magic performance is a no win situation. If the audience is fooled or loses the challenge they feel they deserve the answer or will try to construct one instead of enjoying the entertainment.
If the audience succeeds in wining the challenge the magician has been bested and loses his aura.
No one likes to be "fooled" and the performers who can fool an audience and have the audience like being "fooled' and still like the performer are very few.

The fooling or challenge aspect of performing magic is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome. We are entertainers who take our audiences on a journey, share wondrous things, excite them, even at times educate. As magic in evolving in this decade hopefully we are seeing far fewer "tricksters" whose performance is about I can do this and fool you, isn't that cool .... because it never is