Yesterday, as the closing performance of the Shanghai International Magic Week, "International Stage Magic Showcase" was staged at the East Theatre of the Pudong New Area Culture and Art Guidance Centre. Magic masters and leading performers from around the world each displayed their "magic," deftly weaving magic together with modern art and aesthetics into one breathtaking visual feast after another. From this year the Shanghai Magic Week changes from once every two years to once a year; with nearly a hundred performances and events it became the largest edition with the most performances since it began, and more than 200,000 attendances online and offline took part in and watched this magic week, with Shanghai showing magicians all over the world the city's own "magic."
Caption: a magic performance at the 1862 Shipyard. Photo by Xinmin Evening News reporter Wang Kai
In last night's show the Belgian magician Laurent Piron brought the audience the act "Paper Balls"; David Copperfield, a legend of world magic, once praised his performance as "wonderful, utterly elegant and deeply moving," and this time, five years on, he returned to the stage of the Shanghai International Magic Week to show the audience how his art has grown. Solange Cardinali of Portugal, whose silky, seamless quick-change magic has brought her invitations from magic festivals, television programmes and circuses around the world, last year broke the Guinness record with her partner Arcadio for the most costume changes in one minute; last night she brought Shanghai her act "Quick Change," which drew millions of views in the latest season of America's Got Talent. Artem Shchukin, a magician who grew up in a Russian family of magicians, blends his act "Comedy" perfectly with theatre, mime, music and his own feeling and invention…
At the awards, Zhao Jun from Guangxi took the Gold Award of this Shanghai International Magic Week. In the act "Crazy Chef," Zhang Shuangjian and Cui Yan set a chef against a quick-witted little mouse over a jar of fragrant sesame oil in a kitchen awash with it, opening an unusual and wild duel that included the acrobatic "horizontal hold-up," "one-hand handstand" and "somersaults" as well as the magic effects of "duplication" and "live escape," combined with traditional opera, winning applause from magicians around the world. In addition, the young Chinese magician Hu Linglong, a fourth-generation inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of the traditional magic Gucai Xifa, deeply fuses historical culture with modern magic technique in his work: through the fantastic journey of a relic restorer travelling a thousand years back in time, he tells the story of the ancestors' fight against foreign invaders, painting with a magnificent scene of beacon fires and wolf smoke the ancestors' ambition to defend home and country, and showing the memory of family and nation and the bloodline of the people that the sons and daughters of China awaken from the record of cultural relics.
As part of the professional showcase section of the China Shanghai International Arts Festival, the 13th Shanghai International Magic Week focused on "close-up magic" and covered five sections: performance, competition, academic exchange, public welfare, a props exhibition and a magic market. Three programmes in ten performances were staged at the East Theatre and the Experimental Theatre of the Pudong New Area Culture and Art Guidance Centre. As a forward event of the magic week, the themed performances of the "New Stars of the Magic City" Shanghai new-generation magic training programme were given about 30 times across the districts of Shanghai. Chinese and foreign magic masters took part in public-benefit performances such as the "Art Sky" and magic-market roadshows and the Pudong New Area roadshow, bringing 40 "magic surprises" to the Huangpu City Lawn Music Plaza, the Putuo Children's Library, the Fengxian Sea Flower Youth Activity Centre, the Yangpu Xinjiangwan Culture and Art Centre and the Nanxun Ancient Town Theatre. The Shanghai International Magic Week has closed, but the creativity and "magic" that Shanghai brings to magicians will never close!