This morning I received this incredible notice from David Ben, the Artistic Director at Magicana. In this time of uncertainty, many industries have been put on hold and this is a reassuring light to brighten the day of many magicians in the country:
“And just like that, the Canadian magic industry has vanished.
In response to difficult and devastating times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for magicians who work in the gig economy, the Slaight Family Foundation has pledged to help.
To contribute during these trying times, the Foundation has established the Allan Slaight Relief Fund of $150,000 to help defray cost-of-living expenses incurred by professional Canadian magicians. The Slaight Family Foundation has partnered with Magicana to administer the payment of funds to applicants who meet eligibility.
The relief fund was initiated to help with monthly household costs, such as telephone, utility and grocery bills, up to a maximum of $500 per application. Because of the uncertainty of how long we must maintain strict social distancing, applicants can reapply for assistance thirty days after receiving a prior payment, until the fund is depleted.
If you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, living in Canada, working as a full-time professional in magic with at least three years of experience, you are eligible for funding assistance.
We understand that many magicians are semi-professionals. We would, however, ask that applications at this time be reserved for those who rely on magic as their sole source of income.”
Speaking from personal experience, the Slaight Family have been unwavering supporters of both healthcare and the arts. For me in particular, that intersection of interests led to an extended opportunity to teach magic workshops for children in hospital and rehabilitation settings with a program called My Magic Hands which was fully funded by the Slaight Family. So reading this announcement, I found my self at the same time deeply moved and also entirely unsurprised.
The months ahead are going to be very difficult for the field. Even as some of the social distancing restrictions begin to relax, large gatherings of people are going to take much longer to return. In particular, anything where people are asked to sit together in rows of seats in close proximity will be off the menu for a while.
Even though most magicians are not pickpockets who are sneakily grabbing your wrist to remove your watch, the heart of magic is its interactive nature. The audience is an integral part of the show. “Examine this.” “Take this card.” “Squeeze this in your hand.”
Close-up magic, which I did a fair amount of, is about creating personalized experiences for small groups of people; maybe even one person. And then you repeat the process sharing the same tiny miracle to new groups of people over and over again, possibly for years. Needless to say, that doesn’t translate well to video online. Not only do you not get to experience what’s going on first hand — there are multiple layers of glass in the way, the camera and your own screen — but it also only needs to exist once and then it’s there online forever.
So live magic will be scarce and possibly a bit weird for the next year. I don’t mean to say it will be changed forever. All signs are pointing towards being able to develop and deploy a vaccine which would render this much more analogous to the seasonal flu and life will start to look more like what we think of as “normal”.