Another positive feedback for my magic show!

Two weeks ago, I was engaged to do a show for the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS). The show was held in NUS Guild House and it was a wonderful performing experience as I entertained the guest during the cocktail reception as well as the dinner.

A picture request from a guest

The truth is, the performance was only half the experience. I enjoyed working with Maggie who is the Secretariat of the CEO, in advising the best kind of magic entertainment, the best timing for the entertainment and the pros and cons for certain placements.

I am really happy that the client and the audiences enjoyed the performance and most importantly, enjoyed working with me. In fact, I am really pleased to share a feedback by the client:

“Everyone enjoyed your show! The Magician who supported SERIS on 30^th March 2012 at NUS Guild house brought additional colours to the group of SERIS crowds. He exercises professionalism in his work, flexible in the timing and provides supportive suggestions during the show. On behalf of SERIS, we would like to thank Alexander YUEN for his professional support!”

– Maggie Keng, Secretariat of the CEO, SERIS.

So awesome! This literally brighten up my day! =D

To find out more about having magic in your next event, check us out at: http://www.metaillusions.com/our-services/

Or you can drop me an email directly at:

alexander@metaillusions.com

Signing off,

Alexander Yuen

Grand Opening of Bayfront MRT Station

14th January marked the official opening of Bayfront MRT station. Has a direct entry to Marina Bay Sands.

Meta Illusions was a part of the official opening, Jonathan and I were asked to perform our brand of Close Up Magic for the guest as well as the public. We did our Interactive Roving Magic for audiences inside The Shoppes (the Mall in MBS) as well as the MRT station itself.

 

Jonathan entrances the crowd

Interactive Magic for adults!

 

Performing for tourist

This was a shot of me performing outside Gucci for a group of tourist from China. It is amazing to me how magic can transcend cultures. They truly enjoyed the magic. I should add that I performed some bits with features interaction in Chinese.

Check out the cultural diversity in this picture! 😉

It was loads of fun performing for the tourist and shoppers in Marina Bay Sands. In the year 2010, I was the resident magician for the Skypark, and I think it is an honour for me to be on top of their list when it comes to Magic Entertainment. Meta Illusions is proud to be their preferred choice for Interactive Magic!

 

Signing off,

Alexander 😉

Magic with friends

In the academic field of emotions, there are some emotions that can be expressed individually and some only in social settings. For instance, one can feel the positive emotion of happiness, alone. But for an emotion like gratitude, it can only be experienced in a social setting.

I have strong beliefs that amazement is a highly social emotion. While it can be experienced alone, when experienced in a group setting (like with your friends and family), the emotion multiples. I suspect one of the reasons this happens is because of Social Referencing. This is a theory used to describe how children would use their parents as a reference to their behavior. For instance, when a young child sees a hot kettle, but is unable to appraise its danger, it would reference his/her parent’s expression of emotion to infer if he/she should approach it or withdraw from the hot kettle.

So in magic, many a times, the effect of social referencing allows for the positive feelings of emotions to multiple, of course assuming that the magic is indeed amazing to begin with.

One of the reasons why I brought this up is because I noticed when I do my Close Up Theatre show, which is catered for intimate and private settings, I always find that the audience tend to react faster than in a setting in which the audience are of a dispersed demographic. But of course, even in a crowd of dispersed demographics, it is possible to get them to react in unison. (Check out the ending of The Street Theatre Video and you can see that despite coming from different walks of life, the audience react and respond in unison at the end of the show)

This is interesting to someone who studied psychology, like myself. It seems to me that magic has the ability to foster closer relations (something that I wrote about here), and thereafter the reactions and social referencing tend to be more pronounced and quicker. I think there is something special about watching a magic performance together, it’s like watching a movie together. 

So academics aside, I am very pleased to have been invited to perform for good friends and relatives.

Preparing for the mini show! (Picture Credits: Eileen)

Magic in the hands!

Me acting blur (Picture Credits: Audrey)

Picture Credits: Yong Yun

I had a lot of fun performing for them, and it really does bring a smile to my face that my magic brought a smile to theirs. (Social Referencing in action, kinda ;p )

I am pretty happy that I already have bookings for this show for a couple of Chinese New Year gathering. 🙂

Cheers!

Alexander ; )

An exclusive show: Street Theatre

When I was in the United States for exchange programme offered by National University of Singapore and Arizona State University, I witnessed wonderful magic in renaissance fairs and town fairs.

The magician would set up his table or case and would be able to gather a huge crowd for his act, and they typically look like this:

One of my favourite magician: Jim Cellini

This is pretty remarkable, and it is a full show with a definitive beginning and an end. Wonderful, simply wonderful.

And since I was in the States, I managed to meet real Street Performers and interacted with them. I learnt how to gather a huge crowd, I learnt how to maintain a crowd and end with a bang. Also, I took the six months I had in the States to design, craft and test my very own Street show, which I now call, Street Theatre. It was very well received by the Americans =)

While it is true that in Singapore, we do not have a lot of magicians who do shows like this, most of them do “hit and run” magic in which they show one or two ‘tricks’ and then leave. I have a certain distaste for this type of performance because it tend to leave your audience feeling incomplete.

Also, I should add that most Singapore magicians do not believe that Singaporeans would stay and watch magic. One of the reasons for such (false) beliefs is the lackluster busking scene in Singapore in which passer-bys would simply, pass by, these performers.

About more than a year ago, I had a conviction that what I had to offer was different and the things I learnt while I was in America would be valuable to the events industry in Singapore. I decided to do Street Theatre in the streets of Singapore. And the result? It turned out better than expected. I had tons of people stopping to watch my show.

Screenshot of Half the Crowd

On a separate engagement:

Towards the big finish!

Street Theatre is a show, not a hit and run type of performance but a structured and well designed show to maximize  buzz and add colour to your event. It caters  very well to events like festival, trade shows, road shows and product launches in which buzz and exposure is important.

Check out our promo video for Street Theatre (in HD): 

For more information on Street Theatre or a consultation on the best form of magic for you event, check out our website at http://www.metaillusions.com

See ya!

Alexander 😉

An Exquisite Close Up Show

The Close Up Theatre

Welcome to my Close Up Theatre

I had the pleasure of presenting my Close Up Theatre Show in a private gathering.

MetaIllusions is proud to feature this show. With that said, this show is catered to private events with a small (30 pax) number of guest. The Close Up Theatre is a structured show, with a beginning and a grand finale. In fact, this show builds on the show I do at Bar84 during my 6 month stint there.

One of the highlights: Blind Man's Aces

Interactive and fun!

While this show is branded as a show for a corporate type of setting, it is suitable for a family crowd as well. With that said, this is not a kids show with silly gags and oversized props, do check with us so that we can ensure the best fit of entertainment for you.

The prelude to the Grand Finale

I am really excited about this show, in fact, I am pleased to announced that for this particular show, we already have bookings for it in the new year. That’s pretty awesome!

For more information on bookings and pricing check out our website @ http://www.metaillusions.com/

Or you can drop me an email at alexander@metaillusions.com

Signing off,

Alexander 😉

Roving magic for 21st Birthday Celebration

 

In August, Meta Illusions was invited to perform at a birthday party, Hui Fang’s 21st Birthday party at NUSS guild house at Suntec City.

Here are some picture highlights (Photo credits to Zijie, thanks for the wonderful pictures!):

Jonathan charming the crowd

 

The best magic happens in the audience's hand

Samuel involving the guest in the magic!

I love this picture within a picture. Inception and deception 😉

Customized magic for the birthday girl!

Comments given by the client:

“Firstly, a really big thank-you to Samuel and Jonathan for their awesome charm brought to the party to liven up the atmosphere at the tables! Till date, some of my guests are still singing praises of their really awesome skills- kids, teens and adults alike. I was worried that having just Closeup Magic for my party would be insufficient but your two Magicians did great in bringing laughter and enjoyment to them! Even the 2 little kids! My little niece still keeps the rubberband star Samuel gave her 🙂

I know it was a really tough challenge having to cope with the especially cheeky adults whom only wanted to see through their tricks but the two of them handled it all very well and very professionally. Jonathan’s special trick for me with my name on the cards was also really impressive!

It was definitely the best choice having you guys at my party, and I would never hesitate to invite you guys again should there be any event that requires such services! Thanks so much :D”

It is always a nice feeling to receive these positive responses, Meta Illusions differentiates ourselves from other magicians because we are constantly involved in the planning and success of your event. We do our best to customize our magic leaving you and your guest a wonderful sense of amazement.

Magic is really quite apt for  21st birthday parties. I have had people asking me for ideas on how to ensure that their guest do not feel bored and I believe magic is the answer. Magic entertains  your guest leaving them feeling attended to, and the best party, it breaks the ice because we all have been to parties where groups of friends do not know the other group.

If you wish to engage our services for your next party or event, drop us an email here: http://www.metaillusions.com/contact.php

We are more than happy to provide consultation to your event and creating success for you!

Signing off,

Alexander

Magician at Marina Bay Sands Skypark

It was a pleasant surprise that a reader of this blog dropped me an email telling me that she enjoyed watching a video of me performing in Marina Bay Sand’s Skypark.

I raised my eyebrows because I am unaware of a video of myself in the Skypark, she gave me a link to it, and here it is!

This really brought a smile to my face because it was one year ago! This video brings back so much good memories, I remember feeling so proud to be on top of the Skypark overlooking lovely island Singapore. I was the residence magician at Marina Bay Sands Skypark from June 2010 to August 2010. Also, after my stint at the Skypark, I had to leave for the United States for a term in Arizona State University to advance my degree in Psychology. 

Either way, I am really pleased that someone unaffliated took the video and upload it to share it with his/her friend. =)

Then I cheekily took a chance and search more videos of magicians at Marina Bay Sands (I know, so much for modesty), and I found another!

Hee hee. It is very interesting to see videos of myself filmed by laypeople.

So, if you do find videos of my performance or if you have taken videos of my performance, do let me know, I would love to see it!

Signing off,

Alexander

A night at the Disco

Well …. Not really.

But I was at Club Avatar at Mandarin Hotel Singapore last Saturday evening for Chic Magazine’s 2nd Anniversary celebration.

Adeline and Alexander at CHIC's Anniversary

Together with my friend, Adeline Ng from Concept Magic, I think we rocked the club! Burst of laughter and applause here and there despite the blasting music!

It was an interesting event, while the music was rather drowning, being well versed in visual magic allowed me to entertain the guest effectively. I even met a customer from Bar84, it was a nice feeling that she remembers me and my magic (*waves to Kimberly!)

The essence of close up magic

Girl Power!

Love the look of the gentleman on the left!

Who says girls hate good card magic? ; )

A visual treat, coin magic!

Picture credits to: Eileen, thanks!

Alrighty…! This coming week is going to be so exciting because, a good friend of mine just returned to Singapore from USA. I am eager to see his magic because he actually had some magical training while he was there. Awesome stuff!

And! Captain America will be out this week, good stuff! I think I am going to enjoy this movie very much. I love movies where the main character turns from zero to hero, like Peter Paker.

So ta ta for now!

Signing off,

Alexander ; )

Close up magic at Swissotel

I cannot tell you how much fun I had performing for a Japanese company at Swissotel today! Well, I like it when the audience “spars” with me. I should clarify, I don’t mean physical sparring like in Taekwondo, I am a Green/Red belt by the way 😉

Sparring, what do I mean? The special thing in magic compared to other performance is that we have the ability or priviledge to interact with our audience. Some term this as “breaking the fourth wall”. So compared to a play, in which you watch, in a magic performance, you get to actually interact with the ‘actor’. I enjoyed today’s performance because these people are in higher management, and they tend to be more… sure of themselves. Good for me! I enjoyed the interaction I had with them. Ab libs were good too.

So my point is this, in a close up setting environment, or a cozy magic show setting, there are somethings embedded in these environment that cannot be replicated in a stage act. Intimacy, spontaneity, interaction and to a certain extend, scrunity.

This is literally the closest you can get to the 'actor' of the show

Speaking of the Japanese company, I am still doing Bar84 (on Friday and Saturday evening), however my presence there may be a little more uncertain. There will be nights where another magician will take over me. Don’t worry, I think you will enjoy the different type of magic presented, if I am not wrong, its more comedy magic. I will be there this Saturday evening for sure!

Do drop me an email to check if I will be performing there if you would like to see my brand of magic! Or you can call Bar84 to check whether I am performing there, they would know too.

If not, ta ta for now. Long day today, and its time for me to… rest!

Signing off,

Alexander!

Magic at the Bar

Last Friday night, my friends came down to the bar. Thanks for coming Germaine and Canice! Thanks to them, I managed to get some pictures.

A drink from a secret menu

My favourite drink from the secret menu

Yup, Bar 84 has a secret menu, come down and find out for yourself!

Mr "hot-shot-magician" 😉

Me and my friends!

That was an awesome friday night! Thanks for coming down.

I shall now leave you with a song that has been ringing in my head for a while. *Disclaimer, not a HUGE Katy Perry fan, but this song is quite catchy!

Alrighty, so much for last Friday night. TGIF in 2 days! See you soon!

Signing off,

Alexander ; )