Introduction

Creativity... Hmmm...

Gosh, you got me. This would seem to imply creating things. But we are dealing with magic. Conjuring. If you are painting or sculpting, you have a definite finished product at the conclusion of your labors. But with magic, you are dealing with a substance that is constantly in flux. So perhaps it might be better to view it as performing, with just a dash of engineering tossed in for good measure.

In fact, of all the trades, I would almost have to say that magic is related most closely to surgery. New procedures are created to achieve certain goals. They are developed by the original creators and disseminated by articles and lectures and videos. But in actual practice, the procedures that are written up are by necessity changed to meet the performing conditions. A surgeon who could not adapt a procedure to meet a changed circumstance would be a danger to both his profession and more importantly his patient.

Likewise, a performer of magic. The ability to take a “Standard Effect” and raise it to greater heights is one of the hallmarks of the performers that we all admire. It is in my opinion, the essence of true creativity. This is not to take anything away from the people who create the effect in the first place. But creating the effect is often more an accomplishment that is akin to engineering than to performing. In fact, it is difficult for most people to understand the inherent differences between actually creating a “New” effect and simply re-engineering a new and sometimes better method.

This brings us to one of the basic areas of contention when you are discussing creativity. Who is the creator when a story is brought before the public? The author who originally wrote the story? The director who pulls the separate parts of the scheme together? Or the actors, who in the public’s mind are the story.

In all probability this is the type of question that will be hotly debated by people with far too much time on their hands to ever actually enjoy a performance of any kind. But that is what critics do. They dissect, analyze and basically carve up the once living corpus of a performance and happily point out the now lifeless internal organs with comments about the quality of the dead tissue now pinned to their tables. I don’t much care for critics...

There... I feel better now...