Tag: floating lady

Levitations!

There’s a levitation illusion going around, and there’s something I don’t like about it. Before I go any further, the illusion is fine, there’s just a visual thing that I don’t like. If you can get past this, than it’s a great trick.

Here’s the style of levitation, I think the two pics below are different makers.

What I dislike is the cloth wrapped around the person floating. Specifically how it dangles on the end. This is also my issue with most chair suspension routines. The cloth really serves no purpose, aside from hiding the method.

I get that you can justify the cloth as it’s a magic cloth that makes people float…but then why isn’t all of the cloth floating and some of it dangling?

Yes, most levitations of a human have do deal with gravity. In my opinion the dangling of the hair and dress make the illusion look better visually. Where the cloth wrap doesn’t look anywhere are good as the person uncovered.

I understand that it’s not real magic, and you have to make concessions to hide the method. That’s a valid artistic choice, to have a purpose in your show for a levitation and due to venue limitations you need to use a method that you might not like to move the show forward.

Personally for me, I’d save the levitation for a theater where it can be done without the trade off of having to wrap the person with a cloth.

-Louie

Suspension of Disbelief…

Performing magic requires the audience stop believing what they know. A magic show is a world where anything can happen…but there are limits. If they can see the ball palmed in your hand, you break that suspension. If an effect lasts too long and give them time to leave the magical world and into an … Continue reading “Suspension of Disbelief…”

Performing magic requires the audience stop believing what they know. A magic show is a world where anything can happen…but there are limits. If they can see the ball palmed in your hand, you break that suspension. If an effect lasts too long and give them time to leave the magical world and into an analytical world, you’ve also lost the suspension of disbelief.


Here’s an example, let’s say you are floating a lady and she just levitates for a minute. Just static in the air without moving, and nothing else happens. The audience gets over the shock of them floating and no shifts to why is she floating mode. Odds are within the remaining 40 seconds they’ll figure it out. That’s why you add things like motion. She floats up or around you. You pass a hoop over her. These things keep your mind from becoming bored and stop suspending disbelief.


The suspension of disbelief goes beyond magic, it goes into puppetry, physical comedy, story telling, and even juggling. The audience doesn’t really believe it’s the juggler’s first time doing a trick, or that you and the puppet are having a spontaneous conversation. You need to keep adding things to prolong the suspension of disbelief, like the juggler dropping on his first attempt.


With your magic, how are you keeping people’s minds in your world?