Tricks of the trade

Award-winning magicians from germany share their stories and experiences.

My photographer colleague gets all excited when she starts taking pictures for this article. “Come quickly, take a look,” she says enthusiastically and almost drags me to the spot where four gentlemen are patiently waiting to strike the next pose. “Look,” she points at one of the four men. This gent shows us a Rs 100 currency note and holds a pencil close to it. It’s a crisp, new note that he folds, and before we know it, in front of our eyes, he puts the pencil from one end of the note to the other. “It’s getting torn,” I whisper to my colleague. “No, it’s not,” laughs Timo Marc, the magician who has just shown us this unique trick. And in what’s a fitting finale to our brief moments spent with him during the photo shoot, he holds up the note — crisp and perfect like before — in one hand and the pencil in the other.

 

The press conference at New Delhi’s Max Mueller Bhavan announcing the arrival of four award-winning magicians from Germany has been a different experience from the  briefings that one otherwise attends. This was an event where laughter and tricks intermingled with ease. And it seemed that these men with a sleight of their hands could even trick the weather gods. For the skies opened up during the course of the press conference and for what was a hot and sweaty day, it soon consisted of raindrops pouring across the window panes.

What brought these four men to India was a show, spread over two days, in collaboration with the ITA Group and the German Embassy, at a cost of €30,000. As a spokesperson from ITA Group, the main sponsor of the show, informed: “The idea was to showcase a truly world-class magic show. We would also like to collaborate with Indian magicians.” So, naturally, also on the cards was a meeting with some Indian magicians. In India, sadly, there are only a handful of names that come up — most notably P C Sorcar and his two children. As an art form, magic is dying what with a majority of magicians reduced to either performing at birthday parties and launch events.

Will this interaction change the course of things? “Unlikely. But we would love to collaborate and keep alive the magic of magic,” grins Marc, the Strasburg-based magician. Back home, he says, the culture of performing magic tricks is very much alive. In fact, he ends up travelling a lot for shows in his home country. “After my performance in India, I’ll be off to Spain and Portugal,” he says. But does his profession find ungrudging support back home? “I’m here with my wife,” quips Marc adding, “That’s support, isn’t it?” On a more serious note, he adds that he never really faced any resistance from his family and was, in fact, encouraged to take it up as a profession. And where exactly does he practice and how? “I have this room in my house where I plan my tricks and execute them. It doesn’t happen too easily and some tricks can take as many as three years to refine,” he explains.

His colleague and friend, Julius Frack, who was awarded the title of the World’s Best Illusionist at the World Magic Championship 2009 in Beijing, interjects, “That’s right. A 10-minute act with various segments can take three years easily. You have to refine and refine and refine. There’s no room for error in our profession,” he smiles. Frack shares the example of the act for which he was awarded at Beijing. He spent several years perfecting it. “It was a 10-minute act [each act can have up to 15 different segments] which combined levitation with some other complicated exercises. I had to walk right through my [yes, that’s right] colleague on stage who was levitating. When I first tried it, I got the basic hang of it but refining, mastering and packaging it took me almost three years. It has become the highlight in front of thousands of audiences,” he explains.

Clearly, magic is not an easy job and ask any of these prize-winning, world-famous magicians and they will tell you that it can often be a frustrating exercise. Planning, mastering and executing these acts while sitting in a small room with no one else for company is a lonely as well as an energy-sapping process.

There’s Dr Marrax, who looks like a dead-ringer for Professor Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series. A wizard dressed in a black top hat, long black coat, boots, breeches and even a pocket watch specialises, in his own words, in 17th, 18th and 19th century European street and boudoir magic. He performs on the streets back home and is very keen to visit the “charming” Chandni Chowk bylanes for a performance. One of his tricks includes hammering nails into his head which he believes is “therapeutic”!

What India — often regarded as the land from where the Indian rope trick originated — now needs is a shot of genuine magic for a revival of sorts. We need world-class magicians to perhaps create Hogwarts of sorts with lots of magicians from different parts of the world mingling together to make a difference. Will future collaborations, as promised by the artistes, be the final trick to revive the art in India? We’ll wait and watch.