What makes a moment magical? Canadian illusionist Vitaly Beckman is back in Victoria on December 7 to perform his interactive, art-based magic show, inspiring audiences to answer this question for themselves and explore the power of their senses.
As a visual person, Vitaly thinks in visual terms and incorporates artistic elements such as paintings, photographs, and sculptures into his show to utilize them in magical ways. These elements become animated, with a paintbrush that paints by itself and photographs that come to life—including the driver’s licence pictures of audience members.
The New Westminster-based artist didn’t start out his creative journey with magic, however. He originally started crafting magic through a medium featured heavily in his show—painting.
“When I was a small kid I first started to paint,” he says. “I accidentally watched the Bob Ross show on television, and I said, hey, that looks easy—give me some paint. Next thing you know, my house was filled with ‘happy accidents.’”
He took to magic after discovering magicians on television, recording illusionists such as David Copperfield and Siegfried & Roy on VHS tapes to replay, analyze, and learn from. He came up with his own creative resolutions to their magic tricks, inventing his own style of magic which he has continued to hone through the years.
“I realized that magic can be presented as an art form,” he says. “That’s what inspired me to pursue it, but it was through trial and error that I learned.”
Vitaly is inspired by a range of movies, comedy, live theatre, musicians, and martial artists, and especially by director Alfred Hitchcock, whose films have captivating musical soundtracks, and comedian and pianist Victor Borge, who spoofs concert pianists with stand-up comedy but is also a brilliant pianist himself. They have helped construct who he is—an artist who draws from multiple disciplines to combine them in order to elevate the work. Magic is the medium where he feels these inspirations can come together most, where he can innovate and bring something new to say on stage.
“Art is a process of self discovery,” says Vitaly. “Hopefully, over the years I’m becoming more and more myself, or finding my true self. To be on stage and share your true, authentic self with an audience, well, that’s not easy.”
Because Vitaly’s performances are interactive, every show is a little different. Even though there is structure, there is no script, so the results are always changing. What matters most to him is that he is able to immerse the audience in his world, making them feel comfortable in this new environment he’s created. Sometimes during shows he even invites audience members up on stage.
“I’ve done my show hundreds of times, but it always feels fresh because of the audience,” says Vitaly.
He says that, like art, magic is in the eye of the beholder—we are constantly crafting magic through our perception of everyday moments.
“We can look at a leaf fluttering in the wind, and it can look magical,” he says. “We can look at a cherry blossom shedding its petals, and that can look magical.”
Contrary to preconceptions, Vitaly says that it is not the technology that makes magic.
“If you show an iPhone to someone 30 or 40 years ago, they would maybe look at it as magical. It’s the same technology today, but it’s ordinary to us. It is never the technology that’s magical—it’s always the human experience and how we perceive reality… Something that elevates our spirit.”
Vitaly says that he feels his mission is to inspire people and to “elevate them to a higher vibration.”
“Life can be hard and challenging,” he says, “but when you experience magic, you often feel sparks of inspiration that might be otherwise missing in mundane life.”
Vitaly
7 pm Saturday, December 7
$47, $10 student rush tickets
available two weeks prior to show
Farquhar Auditorium, UVic
uvic.ca/farquhar