One of the things that I’m trying to figure out for the Giant Linking Pin / Thumb Tie routine that I’m working on is what is the presentation hook. It’s the why am I showing this to the audience. This is usually the hardest piece of the puzzle to figure out when creating a routine.
I’d been doing it as “the first trick I ever learned“, but artistically, that’s pretty lazy. That premise is a good placeholder to get the routine onstage, but it’s now a good long term one (usually).
It hit me the other night, I personally have a needle phobia (in a medical setting). I could use that as the hook by saying that I did “exposure therapy” starting with carrying around safety pins in my pocket and eventually moved up to the giant pins. That tells the audience something real about me, and gets an unusual prop (the giant safety pins) into play.
I need to play with it more, but I think it’s a good idea…
-Louie