At Bar Intiki Magician
This month I will be performing at Bar Intiki Magician in Takamastu, Kagawa Prefecture. I will be peromfing close-up magic at various times during the evening with a few other magician. The dates and times I will be there are:
August 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16th from 8:00PM until 12:00AM
Aaron
This years Shikoku Public Magic show well be held on Monday March 21, 2001 In Takamatsu Kagawa Prefecture. It will be a close up show featuring the members of the club. This year because of the tragedy here in Japan we will taking donations for the rescue and rebuilding of Tohoku region. If you are in Shikoku and would like to attend please contact me.
5th Annual Shikoku Magic Friends Public Show “The Magic”
Monday March 21, 2011
Doors open @ 1:30PM
Show Starts @ 2:00PM
Venue:
La Londa
Takamatsu City
8-1 Daikumachi
2nd floor of Marugami Machi Business Parking lot #3
Shikoku Magic Friends Show
Japanese Flag
I have written about performing in Japanese and in other languages before in my blog, but today I wanted to write a little more on the subject and this is, it is not just enough for me just to translate or write my show in Japanese but I have to take care to incorporate cultural aspects of the culture into the show. This goes for pop culture, political culture, history, and much more. The reason that this is important is that here in Japan my audience is 99.99% Japanese people. In many of the causes many of the people in a show may or may not know each other depending on the venue. In those cases it is my job to be able to connect the people in one way, with a shared common experience. This I can achieve by making some joke, or commenting on some shared Japanese cultural experience they all have and that I have. I do this by making a comment at the beginning of my show or by making a joke in my introduction. This then right off the starts makes the audience connect psychologically by connecting them to this mentioned shared cultural experience. This really breaks the ice between the audience members so that they are now “primed” to react better to my performance. It also benefits my relationship to them. One it brings me into their shared experience as well. This is very important for me in Japan as a non-Japanese performer. They seem to one find it interesting I know and understand some cultural Japanese experience that they thought that I would not possible have had. This breaks the ice between me and the audience and creates the bond of the shared experience between us. They become more relaxed with me and they start to talking to me like I am Japanese rather than a foreigner, which can be a problem for foreigners living in Japan. This technique I use for my show I also do in my real life in Japan and it has the same effect. So remember if you are performing a show in a different language in a different country make sure you add this shared cultural experience into the show it will go a long way.
Aaron
My New Something
I am sorry I have not blogged in the past week or so. I have been busy working on a magic project of mine which I have been working on for a while. I have started to put a bit more time into it as I want to get a large part of it complete during next week as I am some free time to spend on it next week during Golden Week here in Japan. Today I completed setting up the basic web site structure for it up. Over the next few days I will be getting my content up for it and then open it publicly sometime next week. I have been posting about it on twitter a bit over the past week or so and people have asked me what it is. Well it’s not an effect or anything for sale for magicians but it may have some things like that in the way future. It’s mostly for non-magicians but it will have a section for magicians. The picture in the post is just a “tease” of the basic website with the name hidden 
The site will be in both English and Japanese. Anyways time to get back to work. I will though have some new blogs and Magic AudioBoos up during this weekend!
Aaron
Cups and Balls
The Cups and Balls return to my close-up show. Why did they disappear from my show in the first place? Well it what out of respect to the owner of Momentos Magic Bar where I worked for 2 and a half years. Mr. Momentos signature closing to his show at he magic bar was the Cups and Balls. So when I worked there I thought that it would be a bad idea for me to perform them. Mr. Momentos never said I could not perform them but out of respect for his show I decided not include them in my show when I reworked it for the magic bar. After I finished my time at the magic bar I got used to my new show that did not have them in the show. Now 5 years after I removed them from my formal close-up show they are coming back! I am excited to bring them back because the Cups and Balls has a lot of magic, entertainment, and, artistic value. I have some ideas that I want to add and remove to my original routine. My goal with the new routine it to make it relevant to a modern audience, and I hope to bring more magic to it than just juggling balls with cups. It will still be a few weeks before I will actually use it but I will be spending time with my Cups and Balls everyday until I have my routine fun and entertaining. I hope I can do it!
Aaron
Magic Friends Show
Yesterday March 21, 2010 in Takamatsu the Shikoku Magic Friends club held their annual public magic show. I was also very glad to be a part of this event. We had 10 performers with both a close-up magic show and a small stage show. We had a good turn out of spectators and the event went very well. I have a feeling this was the best attended one so far. One of the great things of this event was the variety of magic styles and performers in our small club. Each person has their own unique style and permanence personalities which I think kept the show moving and entertaining. No two acts were similar. It seems that in May we will start doing a public show each month. We still have to work out some things to make the show better mostly the technical details etc. I have some video of the show and I will get some more video from Shinnotsuke and over the next few weeks when I have time, try to make a small video with clips of each performer. Over all a great event and below I will share a few pictures from the event! You can also see more photos here.
Aaron Continue reading
Shikoku Magic Friends Club Public Show 2009
The 4th Shikoku Magic Friends Magic Club Public Show will be held in Takamatsu March 21, 2010. Doors open at 1:00PM and the show begins at 1:30PM The event is free and free refreshments. This is a great event as it gives a chance for those Magicians here in Shikoku a chance to perform with regular performers. There will be both a close-up show and a stage stage. The venue is small and intimate. If you will be in Takamasu, Kagawa Prefecture and want more information please let me know! I will also be in the show.
Aaron
Magic Pot
Today I went into Takamatsu the capital city of Kagawa Prefecture for a show I had to do at a Cafe. The show was well, interesting as I thought when I originally booked it ( I knew it was going to be a challenge). Was not easy but went over well. 25 years of experience got me through this one. The show was well received but I was burnt out. I’ll leave this story for another day. Anyways, I wanted to visit the magic shop in Tamakatsu but it was closed. I had some time before the show so I went by. I always seem to get there when it is closed. Eventually I will get to the shop when it is open. Magic Pot is the magic company here on Shikoku that puts on the Shikoku Magic Convention as well as many other magic events and run the magic bar chain “Tejinaya” on Shikoku and the Chugoku area of Japan. This year the convention is in Takamatsu again and will be held in May. Once I know more information about this years convention I will post it! I hope they get the same venue as last year because it was very good. I also dropped by one of the big book stores there and WOW they had a lot of Japanese translations of influential magic books usually found only at magic shops such as the Card College series, books by Derek Dingle and a whole lot more. When I have more time going to go back there and look through them all. Now I am going to have a hot bath and head to bed!
Aaron
Me in the green room
This is a picture I took of myself in a green room before a show. My props are already set on the stage and the audience who was a Japanese company I was performing for has already started their dinner and speeches for the evening. I am to perform after the dinner and speeches with a 25 minute stage show and an hour of close-up magic after that. Now I am just waiting. All dressed up and just waiting. What do you during this time? In my case most of the time my show is already set up at the stage area or already on the stage so it’s just me and my iPhone and the few props I keep in my pocket. Well This is what I do. First before I change I usually do some simple stretching to warm up my body and get it limber and it also feels good. Next I get changed and check myself in a mirror and set my props in their proper places in the right pockets. Next I run through my show in my head a few times. I go over some new jokes and other things I have prepared for the group I will be performing for. I also go and wash my hands then I head to the backstage area if I can depending on the event and venue earlier than planned so that I can see the audience and start to get a feel for the atmosphere. When I perform for dinners and other private events the atmosphere can be very different from event to event. In the case of the show I took this picture at the president of the company was there, so I can already guess that most of the people at the party will be on their best behavior. This is especially true I found here in Japan. Anyway it is REALLY important to feel your audience because at last minute you may need to change the show depending on the audience from the feeling you get. Also don’t be afraid to do this as it is a very important point to know what will work and what won’t as well as what is appropriate for a certain audience. So use this time to get some advance feeling of this. Next I confirm with the Booker, MC, producer, or whoever is in charge that I am all set and ready to go and head on out and give the audience the best show I can. When you arrive at the event you are doing your job so work during this time to help make you show its best. Like someone said but I forget who “Your are only as good as your last show” so make every show good!
Aaron