What constitues dangerous magic?, take for granted the previous posts in this area are considered and deemed magic.

This might not be the right place for this, but is it lack of skill and how hurt one can become in the process? And if so where do you stop -- at coin vanishes?

Just wondering.

DA

I suppose it depends if you are a layman/ spectator or a magician/ performer. Lance Burton's roller coaster escape looks dangerous to most, but it was certainly all under control and not very risky

Side show acts - fire performing, sw sw, blockhead etc - do involve more danger than some other performance arts, but even then a pro performer will, through practice, experience and taking relevant precautions, minimise the inherent risk. Otherwise you could easily hurt yourself very badly.

An inexperienced magician could make almost any piece of magic into a dangerous act.

Cheers

ML

In defining magic "dangerous", I believe you'd have to figure out if you referring to danger to the presenter or to the audience. Fire tricks that have poor controls on them for the presenter are dangerous. Also tricks that "appear" dangerous to audiences (i.e. needle through arm) that they might go home and try on their own (heaven forbid) would constitute "dangerous." Then again, with a blood capsule, I could make a sponge ball routine look dangerous!

...and some performing magicians should have a health warning on their publicity "Caution: may impair your ability to laugh".

Cheers

ML

What about the mentalism routine, where you cover a stand with some conical covers, and under one of them there is a real knife.
You are blindfolded, and you start slamming your hand over the different covers until you are left with one, you lift it up and there is the knife...
I know a few magicians who had good versions of this effect and were scared to perform it.

Yes I love this effect - really great to watch but you would wonder while doing it wouldnt you?

I know this guy who killed a fellow performer while doing stage fighting with swords. The sword broke and cut a major vein in his leg on the way down. Ambulance got there to late, loss of blood. If fact there were 'first aiders' in the audience arguing over what to do. Very sad stuff, you have to be carful doing anything where there is a remote risk someting could happen.

Colin Rose in the UK puts out a great version of the knife trick with metal spikes and polystyrene cups. It's called smash and stab.

Tim

To me, 'dangerous' should refer to the audience effect (what really matters). For a thinking performer who wants a long career, real danger should be controlled, minimized or eliminated.

As Lester Lake once told me, "Die for your audience every night...then get up fresh the next morning."

The mentalist's "Acid Test" stunt is dangerous...in the audience's eyes. For the performer there is no risk at all.

Steve

I've heard a couple of horror stories about the knife stab routine going wrong. Granted that one won't kill you, but you card manipulations will suck after that.

But let's not forget the one that has killed more magicians than any other... the bullet catch. Just ask Ching Ling Soo.

Danger is ALL ABOUT PERCEPTION... last night some fellow who started out on the East Coast arrived at the Magic Castle doing a 'blindfold drive'...

Now WHO, HERE for even a split second even considers that there was the tiniest element of REAL danger in that ???

Yet, OF COURSE, the guy got TONS of free publicity.....and the 'why' is certainly because VIEWERS PERCIEVED DANGER... right ???

Note: just 'for the record', I ate fire for many years, had a few REALLY bad burns...

REAL DANGER is something apart from PERCIEVED danger... in Fire Eating I was often guilty of making it LOOK too easy...

A good ACTOR can make a MIRACLE out of a self-working piece of apparatus... and a poor finger flinger can perform a STUPENDOUSLY difficult feat of pure dexterity and have it just be boring to his audience... again, PERCEPTION is what counts...