Belgian Laurent Peron turned a simple paper in the form of a small ball into a lively and naughty character, moving, jumping, dancing and hiding. Magic Which carries with it a great deal of poetry from being crowned at the end of last July in the Canadian province of Quebec, the world champion in magic, an art he learned on the street.
“New Magic”
A month later, his notebook was filled with invitations from all over the world, thanks to this magic trick that he worked on for years to prepare, he belongs to the “new magic” approach and is inclined through his art to tell stories and creatively express feelings, rather than the show style .
On July 30, Peron outperformed nearly 100 of his teammates at the Triennial World Championships, as the creator of the eight-minute Paper Ball won first prize in the General Magic category. And the grand prize.
“A lot of old magicians came to meet me following my show and told me that they went back to childhood and forgot the techniques. That’s what we wanted with this paper ball. We don’t care regarding special effects, because The goal is magical feelings.”
On his return to Belgium, he found a congratulatory message from the world magic star on his phone American David Copperfield who passed through the wall of China and made the Statue of Liberty disappear.
Copperfield “loved” the trick
The 35-year-old is proud that Copperfield “loved” his stunt. “I hope we’ll meet,” he says. “It’s true that he gives huge shows, but he’s a true lover of magic. He’s still the undisputed master in this field, and he knows all the tricks and special effects. We managed to trick him with that.”
At the age of eighteen, Laurent Peron, the son of a sound engineer in the field of artistic performances, began his magical career, and the talented young man learned from a young age in handicraft his first tricks with one of his friends, and presented with him small performances, until he moved at the age of twenty-two to the Canadian city of Vancouver, where he met Street witches.
He says that the street enabled him to “know the profession and the nature of the relationship with the public.” He adds, “If you don’t impress the audience, they will continue. You have to have enough energy (…) and jokes, and the ability to draw attention. The street taught me how to develop my personality to attract the audience. After that, I introduced (into my work) a bit of The theater”.
A dream, not an illusion
After years of street performances in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and a summer in Europe, the magician returned to Belgium to seek to cement his magic shows’ connection to the theatre.
He explains, “I’ve always loved theatrical magic, that is, the narration from which the visual aspect emerges, not the magic that is limited to shiny boxes or a bunny coming out of a hat. Then I discovered the new magic.”
Fascinated by this movement, which blends illusion art with other art forms to produce a new language, Peron pursued a training program in this field at the National Center for Circus Arts in France in 2015.
And Peron, who collaborates in his works with a director and playwright within the “Alogic” troupe, explains that “magic in this case becomes pure entertainment away from the balance of power between the magician and his audience.”
The world champion hopes that this new trend will contribute to a renewed interest in magic, which ranks second among the living arts, as happened with the circus, and regrets that magic shows are often devoid of any artistic effort in terms of lighting, visual aspect and texts.
And if requests were poured in on the Belgian magician following winning the prize to present his presentation to the public or to his colleagues in Japan, England, the American city of Las Vegas and elsewhere, then he has a dream that is not an illusion this time, which is to be able to show his art from Broadway.
