- OTHER MEDIA
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- The Pandora Experiment: Magician
- San Francisco Chronicle March 20, 2008 (Reyhan Harmanci)
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- Chris Cagigal has been interested in magic since he was 10 or 11 years
old - old enough to know that he could get positive attention even while
remaining a self-described nerd. He scoured bookstores and libraries for
magic books, and stayed up late at night teaching himself sleight-of-hand
maneuvers. But it's been hard finding a place in the field.
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- "The main venues for magicians are parties, corporate events,
Vegas and cruise ships," Cagigal says. "I have friends who do
them, and do them really well, and I respect them and they're really excellent
at those things, but (those venues) are not for me."
- Now, Cagigal feels he has hit his stride as the originator of the innovative
magic show "The Pandora Experiment," now in its third run in
a bigger space. His work lies somewhere between traditional magic practices
and the psychologically driven mentalists, whose effect is very close to
mind reading.
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- "I got into art and theater in college, and took some time away
from performing to not be a performer, but I always knew I'd come back
to it." Eventually, he says, "it became about something else
for me. It wasn't about leveling out social anxieties. It became about
the unknown and being OK with the unknown."
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- "The Pandora Experiment" is broken into two 45-minute acts.
Cagigal is loath to say much about it - a magician, after all, never reveals
his secrets - but he does offer a tease.
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- "There's a box that knows your secret wish, a toy car that knows
what you're thinking, and a toy doll that communicates with the audience
using quotes from Shakespeare."
- Cagigal inherited the doll in question from a grand uncle, a Spaniard
who had fought as a rebel in the Spanish Civil War. He says weaving personal
history into "The Pandora Experiment" is important to him. "I've
always loved storytelling. It harkens back to good old days, shaman, not
to say I'm on the level of shaman, but also sitting around the campfire."
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- In the end, however, Cagigal says that what sets him apart from some
of the showier contemporary magicians (think Criss Angel and David Blaine)
is his emphasis on audience participation and connection.
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- "It's like, can I bring people in to a fantasy world for a while,"
he says. "The more we hurtle forward today, the more we desperately
need that - to be in a magical world."
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