July: A 3 day workshop in Chicago
Posted: May 22nd, 2019, 11:49 am
I'm a guest speaker at the Science of Magic conference in Chicago in July.
Since I'm going there anyway, I decided to come a few days early and bring my 3 day "Art of Magic" workshop.
Most of us eventually reach a spot where we feel stuck, or caught, in our own artistic evolution.
A spot where our original ambitions have been both reached and surpassed, and in lieu finding new goals to strive towards, we continue the motions without really getting anywhere.
Many performers recognize this.
But where all other artistic fields have solutions for that, we in magic have none. Professional singers, even the famous ones, still take classes to maintain and further their abilities. Dancers, the same. But for magicians? There is almost nothing. We lack that tradition in magic.
And since we never had it, we don't really know that we miss it.
Lectures are, for most, more a passive consumption of inside information (or camouflaged dealer shows) than sincere learning events.
”Workshops” do exist, but they tend to be either extended lectures, tutorials on the mechanics of a few specific tricks or, occasionally, just fuel for personality cults.
Workshops where we actually *work* in order to evolve our ability, taste and actual knowledge are exceedingly rare.
Since 18 years back, I’ve struggled to amend that. Tried to evolve a learning model that is different from the traditional teacher/student model. Something that veers away the authoritarian model, in favor of exploration and research. Something that doesn't put the competence of the instructor as a ceiling that can't be surpassed. Something that is more based on the hands-on imperative than anything else.
And it have turned out quite well!
So, July 8-12, I am bringing it to Chicago.
https://magic-workshops.com/event/art-of-magic-chicago/
Since I'm going there anyway, I decided to come a few days early and bring my 3 day "Art of Magic" workshop.
Most of us eventually reach a spot where we feel stuck, or caught, in our own artistic evolution.
A spot where our original ambitions have been both reached and surpassed, and in lieu finding new goals to strive towards, we continue the motions without really getting anywhere.
Many performers recognize this.
But where all other artistic fields have solutions for that, we in magic have none. Professional singers, even the famous ones, still take classes to maintain and further their abilities. Dancers, the same. But for magicians? There is almost nothing. We lack that tradition in magic.
And since we never had it, we don't really know that we miss it.
Lectures are, for most, more a passive consumption of inside information (or camouflaged dealer shows) than sincere learning events.
”Workshops” do exist, but they tend to be either extended lectures, tutorials on the mechanics of a few specific tricks or, occasionally, just fuel for personality cults.
Workshops where we actually *work* in order to evolve our ability, taste and actual knowledge are exceedingly rare.
Since 18 years back, I’ve struggled to amend that. Tried to evolve a learning model that is different from the traditional teacher/student model. Something that veers away the authoritarian model, in favor of exploration and research. Something that doesn't put the competence of the instructor as a ceiling that can't be surpassed. Something that is more based on the hands-on imperative than anything else.
And it have turned out quite well!
So, July 8-12, I am bringing it to Chicago.
https://magic-workshops.com/event/art-of-magic-chicago/
