Review: Sleights Of Mind

By Stephen L. Macknick and Susana Martinez-Conde with Sandra Blakeslee

This book will absolutely blow your mind! If you are worried at the start about being less entertained by magic when you know how it works my experience was that it only increased my fascination and joy of the art.

For stage this book provides valuable insights into creating illusions for the audience. The explanations of how the mind predicts events ahead of time and how the visual system is more illusory than we like to think are priceless.

When we act we need to know how to direct focus to ourselves, another actor or a certain prop or place. Learning how just directing your gaze can be enough to make the audience follow is a wonderful tool for your performance.

As a stage fighter or choreographer you are creating the illusion of contact. The trick is usually hiding the sound. We have pretty decently taken advantage of depth perception to make techniques look like they land. Tricks with misdirection are extraordinarily helpful in being able to hide a knap from an audience, even in plain sight!

It’s a great read, a brilliant idea and a huge resource for stage combat.