World's Best Linking Rings Performers?

[Guest]

Bob White does a beautiful ring routine.

[Guest]

In general the best linking rings is from Viktor Voitko.
Look the video in my acts:
http://www.magic-voitko.com/index.php?o=1

Paulo

[Guest]

tina lenert does a beautiful 2 ring routine!

[Guest]

Having worked with the late Richard Ross quite some times, seeing him do the rings dozens of times has put an impression in my memory for the rest of my life.

However...

Somewhere in the late ninetees I witnessed Cellini doing the rings and, at least for me, he did the impossible; he had the nerve to overshadow Richard with only two rings.
His performance was unbelievable. and the illusion of what the rings should look like, I've never seen done better than Cellini.

I had the nerve to tell my friend and mentor Richard Ross. He just raised his eyebrow, and remained my friend and mentor.

Such wonderful performers!

[George Olson]

I have to agree with Dan. Cellini's routine is simply ethereal poetry in motion.

GO

[Guest]

I love Capehart's routine. I do a "robotic" variation of the routine which is so much fun to perform. I also use his routine as my starting point whenever I use the rings to play 'MagicSports'.

[Harvey Rosenthal]

I am shocked that nobody has mentioned Harry Riser's superb three ring routine. It is a beautiful piece of magic.

Steve Draun's linking ring routine is a beautiful entertaining routine that is performed and explained on his new set of DVDs from L&L.

Ken Krenzel does a lovely four ring routine that is very magical. I believe it was published in The Pallbearer's Review.

I just link rubber bands. :) :) :)

[Pete Biro]

Actually, if you think about it there are DOZENS if not HUNDREDS of performers that to GREAT linking ring routines.

[Guest]

I agree with Quentin Reynolds. There are many beautiful three-ring routines out there, but I would argue that none (or very very few) are actually magical. Just last night I saw a performer do a very nicely choreographed and performed 3-ring routine. There was not a single magical moment in the entire routine. This is (mostly) because the rings are not examined! Certain moments may get audible reactions, but EVERY person in the audience knows -- and would confirm if you asked them -- there must be gaps in the rings.
Read Teller's essay about the Linking Rings in House of Mystery (the David Abbott book) and the Linking Ring chapter in the Roy Benson book, and they will convince you that for the Linking Rings to work AS MAGIC that you need multiple rings and they need to be examined. My opinion is that 5 is the minimum number of rings you should use.

[Guest]

I personally feel Richard Ross's 3 ring routine is very magical.

[Tom Klem]

Rick Thomas and Peter Samelson do wonderful routines. In my heart my favorite was done by Mike Bornstein a few year ago as he reinacted his club act as Kolma from the 1940s

[Guest]

Linking rings the best?

Live performance?

Dai Vernon, Jay Marshall, Marshall Brodien and for the best most entertaining three ring routine I ever saw - Tom Ogden!

[Jim Maloney_dup1]

You can check out YouTube for Mike Bornstein\'s Routine .

-Jim

[Guest]

One of my favorites , and falls in the Comedy arena, would be Pete Biro's, I saw him do it at San Jose PCAM in 1969, and is still embedded in my memory.

[Pete Biro]

Holey Cow... I don't even remember being there and you remember my rings...

Well, thanks much.

That was a routine based on the writings of George Blake. From Blake's Perverse Magic section in his book "Comedy Magic".

However, once I developed it there was little left from Blake's writing. I have written my version up and hope to get it into my long awaited book on the "Anecdotal History of the Linking Rings."

One of the very original phases where two linked rings, set aside after I couldn't get them to unlink, suddenly, all by themselves(?) unlinked with one of the rings flying off the table to the floor. It took me a couple of years and many, many different methods to finally get it fail safe and sure fire.

A great routine that started out based on the Blake writing was Topper Martyn's. His was a lot more animated and slapstick than mine.

Again, thanks for your kind words and MEMORY.

:D

[Brandon Hall]

Let me be the first to cast a vote for Terry Lunceford...an awsome three ring routine with moves unique to him.

[Brandon Hall]

ok...I guess I wasn't the firt to mention Terry's routine...just the first to put it in a favorable light...

[Guest]

Another vote for Richard Ross!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di4XxI3BzqQ

[Guest]

Wow...nice to see a thread I started in 2004 has resurfaced...someone has too much time on their hands ;) to search that far back...

Best,

Mark

[Guest]

I just watched the Victor Voitko Videos... the flying linking rings was beautiful. Man is he good!

[Pete Biro]

I booked Voitko years ago when he first debuted that ring routine... it blew us away.

When asked about it he said his idea was to try to come up with something with the "old" ring effect that no one else had ever done.

[Guest]

I have to agree with Quentin. In a performance for non-Magicians, I believe that the rings should appear to have been handled and examined by a member of the audience.

Look at the premise of the illusion: Solid rings link and unlink, melt together and apart at the Performer's command. A key phrase in that equation is "Solid Rings". It's entirely possible for competent Performers to execute a beautiful and visually mystifying routine without handing out any of the rings. The audience will respond to the dance-like quality of the performance, and if the right theatrical elements are persent, the audience will respond enthusiastically.

There will be those in the audience, who will be convinced that the rings are just somehow cleverly gimmicked to make the illusion possible. This gives them a rational explanation for what they've seen, and I believe, this will lessen their experience of Magic and make what they've seen less memorable to them.

If, however, they see the rings being handled or examined by a member of the audience acting as their representative, that person then confirming the solidity of the rings, and THEN the Magician performs his wonders, even allowing the rings to link or unlink in the participant's hands if the Magician so chooses, then the audience has seen what they'd come to the performance hoping to see: Magic.

- T. Baxter

[Guest]

Admittedly I have not read the Benson book stuff yet (but I will tonight) but I think making a point of all the rings being examined turns it into a puzzle and/or a challenge and not magic at all.

[Ian Kendall]

One thing I noticed in researching ring routines; all the demonstrations I've seen involve careful proving (and often over proving) of the rigidity of the key ring, which is then discarded for the remaining rings.

Why should one spend thirty seconds displaying a ring to be solid, and then spend less than five seconds on the others? Surely the right track would be to use exactly the same procedure for each ring.

Take care, Ian

[Guest]

Years ago I saw Frank Garcia do his ring routine. It was completely silent. The rings didn't make a sound. They just looked like they
melted through each other. You could hear a pin drop. After he explained that he didn't like all of the noise of the rings hitting.

[Pete Biro]

THERE ARE NO RULES...

I have seen awesome silent routines, hilarious talking funny routines and satirical... if the performer is good that's all that matters.

[Guest]

NOBODY is talking about rules. We're just talking about the reality of what is deceptive and what isn't. There are a lot of ways to do the Rings that are funny, beautiful, artistic, etc. but if you want it to work as MAGIC, there are elements that must be present.

EVERYBODY who watches the Rings thinks (actually knows) that the rings (or some of them) have gaps, unless they are convinced (i.e., the performer proves) that they don't.

And Tom Dobrowolski, in almost all magic, methods have to be cancelled. Usually it's done is subtle, implicit ways; occasionally it's overt and explicit (actually part of the presentation). Either way, it is absolutely necessary for the magic to work. Cancelling methods does not automatically turn a trick into a "puzzle" or a "challenge". If the audience knows the method (as they do with the Rings) there is no magic.

[Alan Bursky]

Whit Haydn's routine is a killer!

[Pete Biro]

I have close relationships with a number of incredible engineering talents (including those that build race cars and airplanes) and MOST do not "think" the rings have gaps. They ponder and discuss how 3140 chrome moly tubing can be penetrated and shown to be solid. None have asked to HANDLE the rings, they see them being displayed and are totally baffled, and if the performer is ENTERTAINING, they are entertained.

One of the KEYS to a good performance, however, is to do the magic in such a way that the audience just enjoys it and DOES NOT "think" about "how is it done."

A great case in point is Jay Marshall's routine (one that carried him around the world and onto the TV screens so many times). Nobody worries about the method.

[Guest]

John Lovick said:

"And Tom Dobrowolski, in almost all magic, methods have to be cancelled. Usually it's done is subtle, implicit ways; occasionally it's overt and explicit (actually part of the presentation). Either way, it is absolutely necessary for the magic to work. Cancelling methods does not automatically turn a trick into a "puzzle" or a "challenge". If the audience knows the method (as they do with the Rings) there is no magic."

I would agree. In the case of the rings I believe it is best handled in a subtle, implicit way as it is in the above mentioned Whit Haydn routine.

But I also believe a routine can be so artistic, entertaining and/or funny that the audience could care less about gaps in the rings. It becomes for them a magical experience without the performer having to prove or disprove anything.

[Guest]

Though he is no longer with us...

I always heard wonderful things about Melvin Berkhart's routine. I wonder if he ever wrote it up, or there is any footage of him performing it?

Maybe Todd would know?

Mr. Stickley

[Guest]

My vote for the greatest Linking Ring performer of the 20th century would be Tony Slydini. Hands down.

Slydinis routine uses nine rings. It consists of three phases: The opening phase, where a number of rings are linked and unlinked, then all the rings are passed out to the audience for examination; A two-minute interlude on stage with a spectator where the rings are repeatedly unlinked under increasingly impossible conditions, ending with an unlinking within six inches of the spectators nose; And the final phase, in which a number of designs are made, then all the rings fall singly in a crescendo to the floor.

The entire routine is so constructed as to stop the show and bring a huge ovation, so that that the audience is caught up in a way in which they will never forget. It is different is some respects from other routines, not the least of which the traditional move of bringing the hands together to link or unlink two rings is NEVER done. The rings just appear to melt through each other, even the unlinking that is done six inches from the spectator.

Another difference is the involvement with the spectator. In traditional routines, the magician links two rings and hands them to a spectator and asks him to unlink them. He cant. The magician takes them back. Then he links three rings together and hands them to the spectator. Again he cant unlink them. The magician takes them back. This seemingly endless exchange of rings with the spectator is confusing and perhaps puzzling but not magical.

Slydini gets my vote because of a performance I witnessed in July of 1976. It occurred in Wichita, Kansas, at the Mid-America Magic Conclave. It was Saturday night, downtown at the Century II Civic center, with perhaps a thousand people in attendance, most of whom were laymen, perhaps 300 being magicians. Joe Stevens was the MC.

Joe (resplendent in a white tuxedo complete with top hat) introduced Slydini. Some old-timer seated at the organ started to play. (Faucett Ross? Not sure.) Slydini took the stage and produced several silks, then led into a fountain of silks. Not bad, I thought, nothing to write home about but not bad. Then he picked up the rings and announced he was going to do the Chinese Ring Trick. Aw look, I thought to myself, theyre humoring the old guy and going to let him do the rings at the big Public Show.

What followed next was the most spectacular thing Ive ever seen in magic in my nearly 50 years of involvement with the art.

Slydini got two, HUGE, ROARING standing ovations. During the spectator sequence, he had the guy sit in a chair and did an eye test (The Flight of the Paper Balls) before proceeding. One standing ovation occurred when he made the big paper ball vanish. The other was at the conclusion of the routine. At that moment, he OWNED the stage. He owned the auditorium. He owned the whole state of Kansas!

The effect on me was profound. I literally could not sleep that night. I couldnt believe what I had just seen. The Rings! I decided to quit my jobmove to New Yorkand take lessons. If I could learn just that one trick, Id have something to show audiences for the rest of my life.

Easier said than done, I arrived in New York in July of 1986 (ten years later) for a week of lessons with the master. I had just finished six months on the school assembly circuit and had done the routine some 300 times (by then the routine was published in his book, The Magical World of Slydini). He agreed to teach me the routine only because I was already familiar with it. He pointed out many, many, small details that I could improve.

I remember performing the routine some years later at a casino in Iowa. The guy I invited up onstage for the close-up sequence was a local real estate agent, a fairly intelligent guy. Afterwards he came up to me and said, So, you must have some kind of metal where the rings just melt through each other. The audience is left with no other explanation. The magician doesnt link or unlink the rings. They just melt.

Slydini told me that he only performed the rings two or three more times after the performance I saw in 1976. Couldnt lift the rings.

If you want to perform the rings, I strongly suggest you look at Slydinis routine. Its in his book. As far as I know there exists no video recording of it. Im sure he has a student or two who performs the routine. I perform it, but not nearly often enough to polish it into the masterpiece that it is.

Slydini gets my vote because of the two, huge, Standing Ovations he got for the routine. People leaped to their feet and roared like he was The Beatles or something. Ive never seen ANY magician get that response, for ANY trick or illusion.

I could write 20 more pages, but there it is. Slydinis Linking Ring Routine.

--Robert L. Wilkinson, Orlando, Florida, www.the-great-zucchini.com