FISM 2003 - DAY TWO

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

If you didn't want to watch the competition or visit the dealers, there were plenty of lectures to attend including: Twister with balloons, Mahka Tendo on manipulation, Boris Wild on close up, and a workshop 'Magic into Gold' with George Parker.

17: STEPHAN VON KOLLER - Germany - SI.

Stephan appeared from a big base pressed up against the back curtain, then produced a girl and tied her to a chair and did a combination spirit cabinet and sub trunk. They performed a stripper cabinet and finished with a shadow box using the same base he appeared from at the start. Stephan vanished, reappearing in the audience. He and his lady assistant worked hard, but unfortunately the act went nowhere and little strength in the movements.

18: ANDY GONZALEZ - Spain - GM.

Andy showed us modern music and CDs vs classical music and string instrument. You could see some of the CDs as they were coloured, and he had a coin ladder designed to fit CDs. It was like the weirdest CD storage system ever. Splitting, multiplying and changing the colour of CDs just doesn't seem magically very strong. He also did some violin productions and produced a viola as his finale. Unfortunately, there wasn't consistency throughout the act.

19: CHRIS JOKER - Germany - PAR.

A good act in the style of a television game show - but surely too big to be parlour. Chris used an audience volunteer as he performed an effect very similar to Gary Kurtz mental knife routine which he presented as 'Who Wants To Be A Lefthander?' He had a good presence and was great with the audience volunteer. Other magic included an instant costume change, a beer production, and the appearance of a magnum of champagne for the volunteer. Chris used very well timed video interaction and was colourful and energetic.

20: MASK - France - GM.

Mask presented his Beauty and the Beast act. A very artistic, beautiful and entertaining piece. A story about love. A masked character woos a young maid who relents in the end. Beautiful costumes and beautiful movement. The levitation of the maid was smooth and well performed, and the finale where the shadows of the two lovers morphed into doves and flew away was superb, lessened only by the return of the two to take their final bows.

21: KARIM - Spain - MAN.

Karim was a likeable magician who performed a fairly good card manipulation act and actually made the cards look like they were magically appearing. He also produced bottles and used the caps as thimbles, but the act had no real structure. The ending was nice where a card floated and the magician clicked his fingers as he left the stage, causing the card to fall to the ground.

22: JASON LATIMER - USA - MAN.

Jason was very energetic and well choreographed as he used a single silver ring to cause cards, balls and silks to appear from. Some nice manipulation, very few flashes, and some genuinely baffling moves that improved towards the end when the ring split into two. Refreshingly modern.

23: MAGIC WAVE - The Netherlands - GM.

Quite a surprising, energetic, fun, and original act. It began as a friendly duel between a surfie and a skateboarder that concluded with the two being good friends. The act included costume changes, a levitation, exploding headphones, bottle productions and juggling, a seagull (played by a dove) and a really weird moment at the end with twins. Great use of the torn and restored paper, although I would have like to have seen more done with it. The best piece was the never-ending sand production from their hands. Brilliant teamwork.

24: MAGIC P - Swizerland - MAN.

Some standard manipulation, presented with style, but the highlight was a chair which walked around on stage! It was brilliant! But did it belong in that act? Who cares, it stole the show! One or two other surprises as he manipulated with cards, silks and light globes. Not wonderful stage clothing.

25: JAN DITGEN - Germany - MM.

A very novel, unusual and entertaining act. The alien mind reader was a little hard to understand, probably due to the mask and the voice distortion used to make the magician sound alien. He presented a very large and very effective mental epic type board, followed by a card trick using a randomly chosen card from over 14,000 cards poured into a shopping trolley! The trick was so good everyone swore it had to be a stooge.

26: JEAN-MARIE LE ROYER - France - SI.

Another black light act. Colourful with some novel touches (like riding a broom) but no magic. Movement was not well choreographed.

27: KRISTINE HJULSTAD - Norway - GM.

An act themed around "The Legend of Zorro". It featured the production of roses, rings, a card sword. Story, magic and movement were not very strong. Kristine's voice was very stilted and the magic was too standard, but it was a nice attempt at theming.

28: EBERHARD BAUR - Germany - MAN.

Eberhard began by producing a pot of smoke… that's different. He did billiard ball manipulation, poorly executed, but what saved his act was a nice floating ball where the string was hidden behind a stream of glitter pouring down from above (like the floating glass effect). He spent too much time fiddling under his coat during the act, but the audience liked his big balls. Poor magic act with no theme and no stage presence.

29: SERGI BUKA - Spain - GM.

Interesting act with use of video screen that played big as he took things off and put things into the screen. His timing wasn't perfect as, often, he waited before sliding his hand "into" the screen. The animation on the screen was very well done, including a funny moment where a giant dove was thinking, though most of the "magic" occurred on the screen. Sergi was a little rough with his doves.

30: AARON - Belgium - MM.

Now this was one crazy act. The magician, dressed in a vibrant blue velvet jacket, used three volunteers to hold various objects, a bag of sand, plank of wood and a watermelon. He proceeded to blind himself by pouring molten wax from a candle onto his eyes, wrapping tape over the wax, and aluminum foil over his whole head. Then, blindfolded, he stabbed the bag of sand with a dagger, bashed the wood in half with nunchuks and split the watermelon in two with a samurai sword. Not a bad act, actually. Genuinely terrifying.

31: JORG ALEXANDER - Germany - PAR.

A beautifully presented act about time. Jorg was impeccably attired. The story was clear and the magic well presented using a time piece and cards. He began by using matches, a candle and a watch to travel back in time, then concluded with his amazing ten card trick.

32: TORA - Turkey - MM.

A mentalism act that blatantly illustrated the technique being used. The audience felt very awkward in the way the volunteer was used. When he got her up on stage he said "In the mean time, I will touch you.. err.. tell you.. what we are doing." Nothing more to be said. He was the first act to be disqualified by more than 70% of the judges pressing their buttons and causing the red light on stage to light up and signal the end of the act.

33: NORBERT FERRE - France - MAN.

A truly brilliant piece of magic using very clear fluorescent yellow and pink balls and cards. The magician changes from a funny, cute character to the incredibly talented magician with sharp, confident and choreographed moves. There is a surprise in the box that is first introduced at the beginning of his act. The magician tap dances at one stage in the act, performs the magic, then reveals that the surprise in the box is his shoes that he doesn't have on anymore. Very clever using the tap dancing to remind us that he had shoes on in the first place. A well deserved standing ovation from the audience.

LUNCH BREAK

After lunch some people attended lectures including: Jon Allen on close up and stand up, Jay Sankey on comedy, Michel on 'The Invisible Hand', and The Fred Kaps Lecture which was a biographical presentation on this great Dutch magician.

34: WINIFRED & ANGELIQUE - The Netherlands - SI.

An energetic show with lots of dancing and few illusions. The first two minutes were wasted as we watched their dancers then, after a fire cage appearance, a clear assistant's revenge, and a geometric/sword basket combo with big flags and a flash paper front which burned away, we had another two minutes of dancing at the end of the act.

35: MIRKO CALLACI - Argentina - GM.

A beautiful magical bubble act that ends in a costume change into a clown. The bubbles blown would bounce on the magician's hands, and burst into silks and doves. Some bubbles were even filled with smoke and changed into all manner of things when they burst. The costumes would magically appear on the magician piece by piece. The act concluded with a bunch of balloons from side stage floating toward Mirko the clown. Once Mirko took the balloons he was lifted off the ground and received a half standing ovation.

36: JOEL BROOCK - USA - GM.

In a fluoro yellow trimmed leather outit, Joel smashed a mirror and did razorblade eating with the broken pieces. He then used the mirror frame for a series of silk through ring moves and did ball manipulation with fairly obvious sleeving. A very average act that involved a juggling finale.

37: EL MAGA JULIO - Chile - GM.

A big guy came out, walked about, made glasses appear (I guess he needed them), then he went behind a screen and got changed and came out much smaller. He couldn't get his multiplying candles to light, no matter how hard he tried… and he kept trying! And I was worried that he might trip over the thread that was suspended across the full length of the stage. Unrehearsed. Fumbly. No magic. Disqualified.

38: LEE JEI-MEN - Korea Republic - SI.

You know the start of Star Wars, where the words float through space and the narrator reads them? This act did the same, but with ten times the amount of words in less than a quarter of the time as the narrator read out something completely different. It got a lot of unintentional laughs. It was a story of love, jealousy and anger. However the illusions were hard to see due to the choreography, staging and technique involved. They did a mirror production box, slow costume changes, a blade box, and a vanish in almost total darkness.

39: HIKARI - Japan - GM.

Beautiful movements and delightful to watch. Use of rings and ribbon. Perhaps too much time spent on the rings, but this was followed by a silk production sequence done to 'Riverdance' music that the audience really got into.

40: DIE ZAUDERER - Germany - COM.

Another epic tale as three knights are chosen to guard 'The Silk of Power'… which is subsequently snatched by a snake in a basket which turns out to be an evil vacuum cleaner. The first half of the act was filled with extremely funny sight gags, some actually quite magical too, but the energy and creativity seemed to peter out in the last few minutes.

41: LEE EUN-GYEOL - Korea Republic - GM.

Extremely sharp magic act using cards, candles, doves, silks, fire and smoke. His act is very well rehearsed and timed impeccably to his music. Objects dissolve into smoke, each production and vanish leads smoothly into the next. A great talent and the audience rewarded him with another half standing ovation.

42: JORGOS KATSAROS - Germany - GM.

Another act from the last FISM. An original and extremely creative act. Jorgos enters the stage as a midget, then he grows. He uses a text book to theme his act which is based entirely on the scales of size and weight. The finale sees him growing almost ten feet tall.

43: D RETES - Spain - SI.

D opened with a very long mirror/shadowbox routine. He did a girl through mirror and his uncovered Interlude illusion was deceptive and well received. Good use of white costuming and props on black background. Very clear. The act concluded with a surprise production of a large white dog.

44: MARTIN MATTHIAS - Germany - GM.

A magical Harry Potter style piece which included a wizard, a witch and a young apprentice boy. Funny and delightful with some nice surprises. The production of the boy was very strong! The young apprentice then learned to vanish silks and perform the cups and balls with fruit as final loads. Some tricks were obvious, while others very baffling. The flying broomstick was obvious at first, then it looked great as the kid flew above the castle… until it appeared to crash dive with the boy still on it.

45: ILKAY- Turkey - MAN.

Ilkay was dressed in leather and began by producing a lot of Jay Scott Berry's laser lites. He also did card manipulation with a card flying at conclusion. However, he had a self confidence and way of posing that the audience did not warm to.

46: NA NA - Japan - GM.

A lady magician, who began as a witch then changed into top hat, tails and no pants. Average magic including canes, glasses of wine, billiard balls, streamers and silks performed with clear, crisp movements and just a few mistakes.

47: (F)LINKE FINGER - Germany - GM.

Pirate themed act with some good moments. Nice scenery and props. Torn and restored map, vanishing treasure, appearing skeleton, costume changes, lots of fight sequences and running about. Some effects didn't work as well as they could have, but there were a lot of ideas. They did a sub trunk with a very fast change covered just by a pirate flag, but as they didn't show the trunk it might as well just have had a big hole in the back of it. The act concluded with the pirates running off stage and into audience.

48: REN WEIDONG - China - GM.

Ren did an interesting "classic" act with watches and clocks, some steals obvious, others clean. A great finish where his table became a grandfather clock and a girl.

49: KENJI MINEMURA - Japan - MAN.

Very clever, creative and interesting act. Themed around an artist using an art book. He drew and then produced the objects: glasses, rose, paints, brushes and vase. These objects were arranged into a still life that vanished and appeared on the art paper as the magician's still life painting. Very original ideas, some tricks were WOW! but others a little too obvious.

50: STONKEL - Germany - GM.

Unusual act. Funny. Interesting with just a touch of magic. Magician stands at one end of his backdrop and reaches through it to the other side as his arm appears to stretch. His backdrop curtain opens and closes with him stepping behind and in front of the curtain, impossibly changing costumes and appearing simultaneously at either end of backdrop. One great gag involved a pom-pom pole that became ten feet long. At one point he even lifted the entire theatre up to disprove any hidden assitants. Stonkel proceeded to get more and more stoned, and things got weirder and weirder.

After a quick dinner break we headed back into the Rembrandt Hall to present another night of MagicSports,

while the Close Up Gala was again performed in the Van Gogh Hall.
From 10.00 pm Bar Magic took place downstairs and, in addition, the Dutch magicians presented a stage show.