Jorge Blass speaks with enthusiasm and is going to bring both emotions to Poliorama for a month, from November 28 to December 22. The show is called Flipar, word that according to the RAE means to be amazed, amazed or surprised. There are effects such as turning two spectators invisible, teleportations, etc., but also routines that are historical miniatures of magic. For example, manipulation. “There are no artifices there, it is the essence of magic. René Lavand said that it was the credential of magic.” And he recovers a card game that he saw when he was six years old. “It impressed me and I wanted to get it back, make it mine. The show requires transport trucks, but this effect is done with a deck of cards and a marker. That’s enough to fascinate the public. “Magic is that, emotion.” He repeated this game in October in an open promotional performance in a shopping center in Barcelona. “The magician Dai Vernon did it to (1874-1926) and he did not understand anything. “I wanted to repeat it on October 31, the anniversary of the death of this great escapist.”
The creation of Flip It took two years of work and the collaboration of more than 20 people from different countries. It premiered in Madrid about two years ago. It took a long time to arrive in Barcelona. Is it that when a magician of great illusions, like Mago Pop, is in a theater, it is not prudent to premiere at the same time on another stage in the same city? “No, not at all. We have had to wait for the right moment. We have both met in Madrid without problems. I think that if the audience leaves a show happy it helps the other because they will want to go see it.” Well aware of the research that neuroscience is doing on magic, an art that deceives the brain not the sight, Blass maintains that magicians have played with anticipation, memory or forgetting for many years without having scientific knowledge. “Then came magicians, true wise men, like Ascanio or Gabi Pareras, whose theories gave a name to what the magicians did without naming it, without knowing it.”
Blass is , but his dedication to magic extends to other tasks. He is a producer of young artists. For example, from Inmagic. “It’s about giving back something of everything that magic has given me. There are very popular magicians on the networks, like Inmagic from Córdoba, but they do not have the knowledge to put on a show. You have to discover its new magic, full of challenges. “Inmagic mixes magic with Kpop dance.” Advises theatrical tricks (Beauty and the Beast, Matilda), gives lectures to businessmen on the concepts of magic (“we work with innovation, credibility, with surprise and companies have understood that they can take advantage of this type of learning”) and organizes an international magic festival in Madrid whose 15th edition at the Price will last five weeks. A festival that brought to Barcelona one year and…never again. “It is not an easy project at the private level. We do it hand in hand with the City Council, which takes it as a city festival. In Barcelona we lacked institutional support to be able to sustain it even though it represents a very good return for the city that hosts it.” Member of an NGO of magicians (Abracadabra) who work in hospitals and care centers, the proceeds from December 3 at the Poliorama will go entirely to the Fundació Pasqual Maragall.
Years ago, with other friends, he promoted a magic program in Cuatro, Nothing herewho invited very good artists to the stage of his set. Now television magic seems to only know how to be street magic. “Magic on television needs new formats. It has the burden of those who do camera tricks that undermine the viewer’s confidence. There are honest artists like David Blaine who make real magic, without camera tricks. And it is successful. The rest are shortcuts. The worst thing about magic is that you don’t believe it.” This year, after performing off Broadway and at the exclusive Magic Castle in Los Angeles, he received the award from the Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood, the first in 60 years to be awarded to a Spanish illusionist. Blass keeps the secret about a 24-hour show project outside the theaters.
The . Recently we have seen, for example, Yunke at the Tivoli – Yunke will return to the Apolo – or Mago Pop at the theater he owns, the Victoria. Magic usually circulates through smaller rooms, but that does not mean that the magic that is done there is small (Cincomonos, Somnia magic bar, Teatreneu, Club Piola, LaOff, Café Teatro Tinta Roja, Luz de Gas, Magia Bcn, Museo Destino Clan, Gaudí Theater…). The Muntaner theater reopens where Isaac Jurado, a notable practitioner of comic magic, will be on certain Fridays (see the theater’s website). And Hausson, the only illusionist with the National Culture Prize of the Generalitat, will bring to the Teatre la Gleva, between December 18 and January 5, The hall of wondersa great chamber magic recital. Help yourselves.
