This week, one of our living legends, an underground Mentalist that you need to study, Ross Johnson.
This quote comes from his Penguin Lecture, which I highly recommend. His professionalism, deep thinking and attention to detail is amazing and necessary to the state of the art.
His compromise regarding his premise as performer is also a fantastic center point to reflect about (maybe for other quote), but he only does Mindreading and not other phenomena, which is related with the topic of our Quote of the Week.
Realism is a big part of Ross Johnson´s work. When you see him perform, you can feel that what you are witness is real, and our duty as Mentalists is to do this as well.
People want to experience a real moment, and not just another illusion that a Magician can create. Already our loved colleagues can vanish coins, make cards appear, do wonderful and astonishing acts, so if we differentiate our acts, we can achieve a different impact to our audiences. Not better or worse, but different.
Thats the reason why Magic and Mentalism works so well in a "variete" show. I do one with a Magician friend in Chile, and people can sense the difference. They understand that the Magician creates the impossible, but the Mentalist does what apparently is possible.
What is your repertoire? Do you collect tricks because they are fun for you? Or you care about your audience experience?
As soon as you realize that performance is for people, your state of mind will change. You will care less about tricks, and you will care more about impact and realism in performance.
Is far better to master a handful of Mentalism pieces that trying to learn it all, and do nothing.
Study your material, curate it, rehearse it, perform, and do powerful REAL Mentalism, not just tricks.
There are enough trickster in this world.
Keep it real.
I hope that this ideas can impact your week, and the next time your perform, you can have this "realist" approach to performance.
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