This is a 5 day hands-on workshop in conjuring. There will be loads of exercises in misdirection, dramatic and deceptive structure. We will examine magic theories, apply them and discuss them in the context of performances. The course is suitable for those with moderate experience as well as experts. We will work from early morning to late night and you’ll find it both challenging and rewarding.
You can read what former participants thought about the workshop in the Journal and in last years evaluation survey.

The workshop itself is free of charge, as education is free in Sweden. But there are costs for room + 5 meals/day.

Required prerequisite knowledge

General knowledge about conjuring techniques and some performing experience.

Venue

The venue is “Sigtuna Folkhögskola” (Sigtuna folk highschool), located in the beautiful small village Sigtuna, not far from Arlanda Airport, in Stockholm, Sweden.

Instructors

The workshop is led by Tom Stone and Leif Olberius.

Tom Stone is the author of several technical books on conjuring arts, as well as a performer, consultant, speaker, creator and teacher of the subject. He was awarded the 2015 Creative Fellowship by the Academy of Magical Arts.

Leif Olberius started out as a wonder kid, performed on national TV as an 11 yrs old. Eventually, we lost him to theater, first theater school, then he started his own theatre company. But the magic bug didn’t go away, and eventually, he returned back to us – with tools and knowledge few others in magic have.

…there will also be a few extra guest instructors.

Learning objective:

On completion of the workshop, the student should:

• Be able to practice and apply misdirection, dramatic techniques and non-linear methods.
• Be able to confidently work with the brainstorming process in relation to any given theme.
• Get an improved language to make it easier to cogently discuss, research and experiment with colleagues in both magic and related artistic fields.

Schedule

Monday
• 8.00 Breakfast for those who arrived on Sunday.
• 9.00 Check-in.
• 9:30 Introduction of the courses.
• 10:30 Diningroom: Fika (coffee & snacks)
• 11:00 Exercise: The Effect as a narrative.
• 11:30 Exercise: Think face.
• 12:00 Lunch
• 13:00 Exercise: Subplots.
• 14:00 Exercise: Cancelling.
• 15:00 Fika (coffee & snacks).
• 15:30 Exercise: Crossing the Gaze.
• 18:00 Dinner
• 19:00 Extra event: Introduction to the Butterfly Deck with Ondřej Pšenička
• …In the evening, there’s a bar. There’s also a lake nearby for those who want to swim.

Tuesday
• 8.00 Breakfast.
• 9.00 Exercise: Impulse & Direction.
• 10:30 Fika.
• 11:00 Exercise: The gaze for drama.
• 12:00 Lunch
• 13:00 Exercise: Structure
• 15:00 Fika.
• 15:30 Exercise: One ahead / One behind
• 18:00 Dinner
• 19:00 Extra event: Talk by Håkan Berg
• …The bar is open.

Wednesday
• 8.00 Breakfast.
• 9.00 Exercise: Text & Voice, part 1
• 10:30 Fika.
• 11:00 Exercise: Text & Voice, part 2
• 12:00 Lunch
• 13:00 Exercise: Motion vectors.
• 15:00 Fika.
• 15:30 Exercise: Foreshadowing & callbacks.
• 18:00 Dinner
• 19:00 Extra event for women: “Towards a mutual body of knowledge”
• …The bar is open.

Thursday
• 8.00 Breakfast.
• 9.00 Exercise: Applying the new knowledge.
• 10:30 Fika.
• 11:00 Reviewing what we have learnt
• 12:00 Lunch
• 13:00 Exercise: Applications in your own work.
• 15:00 Fika.
• 15:30 Exercise: Applications in your own work.
• 18:00 Dinner
• 19:15 Extra event: Open stage in the dining room. You are welcome to perform.
• …The bar is open.

Friday
• 8.00 Breakfast.
• 9.00 Individual presentations
• 10:30 Fika.
• 11:00 Individual presentations
• 12:00 Lunch
• 13:00 Evaluation & Discussion: Bringing it home.
• 14:00 End

Loose guidelines.

The following are just advice, not rules or demands.

In general:
Make sure you have pen and notepad. You will get hundreds of ideas, and any idea not written down will be instantly forgotten.
You will probably want to document some of the work you do, so make sure you have plenty of free memory in your devices so you can film and photograph your ideas.
It might also be nice to share one’s notes with the group, via some internet solution; Google Docs, Dropbox…

For the exercises in misdirection:
Bring a few coins in a size that is comfortable to you to palm.
Also, bring a few identical small objects that are comfortable to finger palm (maybe small rubber balls, balls from Cups & Balls, small toys, marbles, pebbles from the ground… anything).
And one object that can act as a magic wand (a wand, a drumstick, a large pencil, a stirring stick for drinks… something)

For the exercises in structure and routine construction:
You need to bring 3-5 simple and short tricks that you can perform. It does not need to be good or advanced (it can even be something from a magic set for kids). But they should be different, not too similar. The purpose is to learn how to build the structure of a routine or an act, so the nature and quality of the actual tricks are not important. The simpler the better.

For the final exercise:
(Optional) It is not necessary or essential, but you can bring 1-2 tricks or routines you are already working with. The last exercise is to apply as much as possible of the new knowledge on one of your own routines, but the advice is to pick either something new that is in development, or an old piece that you’re godawfully tired of, rather than something that is in your active repertoire, because most people are hesitant to change something they know works well as it is. The reason we say this is optional, is because we’ve noticed that most tend to pick something they’ve come up with during the week. Yet, it might be good to have something, for peace of mind, if nothing else.

For the creativity exercises:
Bring a small kit of your favorite solutions.
If you like to use magnets and strings to solve magic problems, bring magnets and strings.
If you often solve magic problems by gluing stuff together; bring glue.
If you tend to use black art; bring black material.
…
And if you don’t have any favorite solutions to magic problems, don’t worry; just bring yourself.

Music:
For some of the exercises you will likely want to add music, so load up your devices with a good assortment of music in various moods; upbeat, sad, happy, spooky, dramatic, soft, rhythmic…et cetera.

Finally
In the evenings, a make-shift pub will be open and the participants in the Conjuring workshops can socialize with each other. Improvised magic performances and sessions are very welcome.

Registration form

Max amount of participants: 18.