The Making Of A Masterclass
By Andi Gladwin - Saturday, June 11, 2022
It’s surprisingly difficult to put together lectures for Vanishing Inc. Masterclass. A “masterclass”, in our terms, consists of two lectures of at least 1.5 hours each and as we try to encourage our guests to focus each lecture on a specific topic, I wanted to do the same.
I had known that I wanted to present my own month of lectures since we launched Vanishing Inc. Masterclass and so have been mulling over exactly what I’d teach for a couple of years. But rather than just presenting lectures full of unconnected tricks, I wanted to use this as an opportunity to show material that demonstrates the things that have been on my mind recently, and the material that I have been enjoying performing most. This would give me an opportunity to pepper the explanations with additional thoughts, handlings, and advice, beyond just talking you through how the tricks work.
So, over the past year or so, I kept two lists. The first was the tricks I found myself performing most often, and the second being the tricks I found myself practising and progressing the most. Not surprisingly, there was quite a bit of overlap between the two. I think that’s a good thing.
But then when further mulling over those two lists, I realised two distinct things that connected the pieces: some routines focused on progressing work from masters of magic and others focused on progressing my own existing work. And so, it felt like a perfect opportunity to share two lectures based on exactly those two things. Development, progression, and collaboration are all processes that are at the heart of my magic and so I’m happy to have the opportunity to talk about them, while using my own magic to illustrate those points.
But instead of just teaching the tricks, I wanted you to see how I perform them for audiences. So, I gatecrashed two other Vanishing Inc. shoots for upcoming projects and used that as an opportunity to perform all of the routines in front of actual audiences.
So, two years in the making, I have filled this Masterclass with magic that I’m not only excited to share, but that I am truly passionate about. It’s the result of many hours of thinking, over 30 pages of notes, and a whole lot of care for making the best Masterclass yet. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
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