We are Vice-World Champions in Mental Magic! Apart from the title, we are very happy about the feedback and recognition by fellow magicians, international agents and the fact that we have left almost every single person in the audience clueless about how we did it. Even the jury could not be certain that we were not using any stooges or electronic equipment until we proved it in a secret jury meeting.
Until today we haven't published our plot since we wanted to surprise the audience at the World Championships, but now it is out anyway and we are happy to share it with you.
"In a witty contest between a professional mind-reader and his assisting wife, Anca takes over control in order to show "real mind-reading". Anca is an empathetic medium and receives emotions and thoughts from members of the audience.
Unsuccessfully trying to explain Anca's incredible skills, Lucca finds himself in a two-fold struggle, to maintain his reputation on stage and to survive as a husband."
"The Mind-Reading Revolution" is by far my most powerful creation until today and, with the devoted support of my most wonderful wife, we baffled the audience in Rimini, Italy. Even our presentation was perceived as very original and we showed many different and new effects.
When we started designing TMR three years ago, the main premise was to completely re-create the traditional two-person mind-reading act. First of all we wanted to bring the whole act on stage. As much as we like the audience to participate, we like the rest of the audience to see it too. The second change was to show more than just one effect and to let Anca reveal even things or details that nobody in the audience can see. Last but not least, we have embedded the whole act into a contest/marital argument, something that almost every man and woman can relate to. This approach is quite new, opens endless opportunities for funny moments, but requires an enormous amount of training, rehearsal and concentration during the performance. Recently, we've intensified our acting-lessons and we will continue to do so. They are great fun, by the way.
But above all, I believe that (not only mental) magic should be astounding and at its best completely inexplicable. Most of the magic is gone, if the spectator has an idea of how it was done, no matter if his explanation is right or wrong. Magic is strongest when you have no explanation and even stronger in only one case, when you are absolutely convinced that what you've just witnessed, is impossible. I am always striving to achieve this goal. Acting, stage equipment, humor and other ingredients are important but must not compromise the deception. Form follows function.
Having said that, we are now at a point where we will focus even more on all these other ingredients because our foundation is rock-solid and the rest will come with practice. We've rehearsed our act a few hundred times but it only gets polished when you perform it again and again in front of a live audience.
Our original plan was to compete at the European Championship in 2014 and to go on tour with our act afterwards but in the meantime we've been gifted with life's greatest award. For 6 months we've stopped our preparations completely in order to dedicate our full attention to our first child. I admire my wife for being able to catch up again so quickly at the beginning of this year and we also have to thank our son for being such a patient and easy-going child. Many times he had been watching us rehearsing on stage for hours without any complaint.
So where do we go from here? First we will work on the extended public version of our act. At the Championships one is strictly limited to 10 minutes, but we have so much more to show. Second we should learn to perform it in Spanish, in order to meet demands from South America. That would be the third language after English and German and a good reason to learn something, we both would like to master anyway.
And then in 3 years we will hopefully return to the World Championships in Busan /South Korea. This year we've been short by more than 8 points (out of 100 possible) to win the Grand Prix, which is a special award being granted only to the two best acts of each of the two main categories, stage magic and close-up magic. The title of World Champion in the particular category comes with it inevitably. To our knowledge no mentalist ever achieved to win the Grand Prix and it was our ambitious goal for this year.
Some said we are crazy, some said we are insolent to mention this goal even in public interviews long before the Championships and wished us not to win. Here is my message to all those and to everybody who is doubted by others. Dare to think bold and big. If you are convinced that you can achieve what you are planning, you are NOT thinking big enough. You need to set your own goals beyond your comfort zone, forcing yourself to strive for more than even you consider possible. If you never have doubts yourself, think bigger ! Otherwise you'll never reach your full potential. In other words, look out for those who declare you crazy, look out for people who are laughing at your ambitions. If you don't find them, you are still not thinking big enough !
